Missing in Action

by Peter David

  “And you’re expecting…what, Captain?” asked M’Ress. “That by helping Soleta’s ship, we’ll be earning ourselves karmic points of some sort?”

  Mueller stared at her icily, and it was as if the temperature in the room had dropped ten degrees. “I am expecting…Lieutenant…that I will be giving orders and they will be obeyed.”

  “No one’s questioning that, Captain,” said Desma.

  “I am.”

  All eyes turned toward Hash. There was none of the typical joviality in the ops officer’s face. Instead there was a coldness that Mueller had never seen before in all the years she’d known him. There was no trace of his drawl now. “Make no mistake,” he continued. “I will obey your orders, Captain. Nor do I dispute your right to make them. But I am questioning them, and their wisdom, and yours.” He stood, his shoulders square. “And I am officially requesting a transfer from this ship at your earliest convenience. Thank you.” Without waiting for Mueller to respond, he turned and walked out of the briefing room.

  There were stunned looks from everyone there. Mueller stared at the door long after it had closed behind Hash, and then—in a flat, even tone—“Executive Officer…oversee our people helping the Spectre to go on its way. Arex, as soon as their ship’s ready to depart, I want a security team to escort Soleta back there. Anyone here have a problem with any of that?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Good. It is so ordered.”

  As one they rose and filed out one by one from the briefing room, leaving Mueller to conjure up mental pictures of firing Romeo Takahashi out a photon torpedo tube.

  U.S.S. Excalibur

  She sees him. She knows no one else does, but she can, so easily.

  He managed to reach an escape pod before his ship detonated. It is small and thus capable of eluding detection, essentially indistinguishable from debris and possessing interior devices that mask his life signs.

  And now he is floating. Floating…and more afraid than anyone on the Excalibur or on the other vessel. His world is now a dreadfully frightening one, and he feels very, very alone.

  She wants to reach out to him, to touch him…to assure him that everything is going to be all right. Except she doesn’t really know for sure that’s going to be the case. In fact, the odds are huge that everything will be about as far from all right as it can get.

  She wants to tell him that he is not alone. She would like to do that because she knows from her own experience just what the depths of loneliness can feel like, and she would not wish that on anyone.

  But she stays her hand, because she has no desire to do anything that will change the events that are about to unfold…if for no other reason than that she’s intensely curious to see what’s going to happen. She is content for the time being to be a mere observer rather than a participant.

  She looks beyond herself for just a moment. She has the vaguest sense of the father and the son…the man and boy, normal yet abnormal, small yet vast…and she knows that they will be instrumental in the final fate of all concerned. But she is not quite clear yet on how, and more, she’s not sure she wants to know, for it will be a great and terrible thing when the father and the son end it all.

  So instead she turns her attention back to the being in the pod. The pod that is drifting right toward the Excalibur, toward the shuttlebay, and no one knows it yet. But they will, they will…

  i.

  Calhoun didn’t know what to expect when the image of their new “friends” shimmered into existence on the bridge. Indeed, he’d been surprised that they had responded to their hail at all…or at least responded without making the slightest attempt to destroy them.

  He’d been briefly concerned over their ability to understand their saviors. “Universal translator” didn’t necessarily apply if one happened to be somewhere other than one’s own universe. Nor was he certain that ship-to-ship communication was going to be possible at all, if something as fundamental as the laws of physics worked differently. But both worries turned out to be groundless when a purplish image appeared—not on the viewscreen, but right there on the bridge, a mere two feet away from Calhoun.

  Calhoun involuntarily flinched back, more from surprise than from concern for his well-being. Just as reflexively, Kebron started to move from his tactical station to serve as bodyguard to Calhoun. But then he likewise realized that they were faced not with a flesh-and-blood individual but instead a light projection of some sort.

  Then again, even if their new acquaintance had actually been there, “flesh-and-blood” might not have been the most appropriate term to use.

  The newcomer looked like nothing to Calhoun so much as it did a giant amphibian of some sort. Its skin was thick and green and seemed to hang loosely off its frame. It had no legs, or at least none that were readily visible, since any legs it did have were hidden by the massive folds of its teardrop-shaped body. It seemed to have four arms, two on either side, jointed in the middle but still rail-thin. Each arm had a large swelling at the end that could generously be considered a hand, and a half-dozen small dangling stringlike appendages on each “hand” that served as fingers. Its head was squat, with four bulging eyes atop, and Calhoun immediately noticed that they had the disconcerting habit of blinking—not simultaneously but in sequence, from left to right. Open, shut, open, shut, four times in quick succession and then over and over again. He couldn’t even begin to discern where its mouth was until it began talking, and even then he was startled because the mouth was in the general area of what Calhoun had taken to be the bottom of its throat.

  “Greetings,” it didn’t so much say as it did warble. “I seek the mate of the vessel which aided us in our battle against the Teuthis.”

  “If by ‘mate’ you mean the captain, that would be me,” said Calhoun. He stood, feeling it to be the more appropriate way to address the…individual. “I’m Captain Mackenzie Calhoun. You’re aboard…or at least you’re projecting yourself aboard…the Starship Excalibur.”

  “A starship?” It appeared to roll the word over its lips.

  “Yes.”

  “And what…would a ‘star’ be?”

  That brought Calhoun up short. It was Xy who stepped forward and said, “They are bright islands that dot the environment from which we come. They’re very far apart from one another, and we travel from one to the next to the next.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “To explore. To learn.”

  “To what purpose?”

  This prompted Xy to look blankly back at Calhoun. “We more or less consider it an end in itself.”

  “I see,” said the creature, although it was impossible to determine if he did or not.

  “The Teuthis,” Calhoun said, wanting to keep matters moving along. “That is the name of the beings we fought?”

  “What? Oh…yes. That is how they call themselves, and have always called themselves.” Despite the holographic nature of the communication, his face still darkened slightly at the very mention of the other beings. “The Teuthis have long engaged in a systematic destruction of all who are not the same as they. They decided that all this,” and he extended two of his arms to either side, “must be for the Teuthis and only for the Teuthis. And so they long ago set about to eliminate all other life until there would be just Teuthis in this realm.”

  “If they are the Teuthis, who are you?”

  “We are the Bolgar,” it said. “I am called Termic.” He touched his chest lightly as if in pride, and it puffed out a bit. “Termic of the Bolgar.”

  “What is this realm’s name?” Xy interjected.

  “Name?” The being sounded puzzled.

  “The name of it, yes. What do you call it?”

  Termic of the Bolgar made the oddest noise that sounded as if it were supposed to be a laugh. Calhoun couldn’t be sure. It might have been a strangled cough. Then Termic composed himself and said, “That is ridiculous.”

  “What is?” Calhoun had no idea what he was
finding so amusing.

  “Naming the realm.” It appeared to be making the equivalent of a smile, but it was hard to be certain. “It is a symbol of supreme arrogance to think that we would have the right. It would make it seem as if we were greater than the realm itself. It would be…presumptuous.”

  This time it was Calhoun’s turn to find something being said amusing. “Like the remora trying to name the shark,” he said.

  “The what trying to name the—”

  Calhoun put up a hand, silencing Termic. “I understand what you’re saying,” he told him. “That’s all I meant.”

  “Ah. Good.” Termic looked at them curiously. “You are not from this sphere, I take it.”

  “That’s absolutely correct.”

  “Have you presumed…to name your sphere?”

  Calhoun exchanged looks with the other denizens of the Milky Way galaxy. “No,” he said quickly, and there were echoes of “No” and “Of course not” from the others on the bridge.

  “Very wise. I assume you came here through the Teuthis corridor.”

  That brought them to a halt. “The…Teuthis corridor?” Calhoun asked.

  “Yes. The means by which they seek to escape their inevitable fate.”

  Burgoyne stepped in close to Calhoun. “The conduit,” s/he said in a low voice. “The transwarp conduit. These Teuthis…their way out was our way in. And, most likely, vice versa.”

  “Are you saying,” said Calhoun, wanting to make certain that there was no confusion on the matter, “that these…Teuthis…are responsible for the interspatial rift that brought us here…wherever here is?”

  “Absolutely,” confirmed Termic. “For a very, very long time, they have dominated the sphere. They thought to eliminate all life except their own. They thought to dominate, to conquer. And we have fought back, battling against genocide. Once there were many races in the sphere. Now there is just us and the Teuthis. But we have not gone quietly. We have fought back and fought back, and now we have the Teuthis on the run. They seek to use their corridor to escape us. To create a beachhead elsewhere and use it as a staging ground for new conquests. If they are within your sphere…then I fear for the life-forms that reside there.”

  “So do we,” said Calhoun. “But why did they send us here? If we were a threat to them, why not simply destroy us?”

  “Oh, well, that seems rather obvious to me,” said Termic. “They couldn’t. Their weaponry was insufficient.”

  “You’re joking,” said Burgoyne. “They seemed far more powerful than we are.”

  “Perhaps the operative word is ‘seemed,’ ” said Calhoun. “So their preferred means of disposing of us was simply to send us down here via their…corridor…on the assumption that we wouldn’t be able to escape back to our universe?”

  “Yes,” replied Termic. Calhoun noticed that there appeared to be some sort of slime dripping from him and gathering at his feet, or at least where his feet would have been. Yet another reason to be relieved that he’d shown up in holographic form. The prospect of having to clean up after him was not a pleasant one.

  “So you know how they sent us here.”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  “And you can send us back.”

  “No,” Termic said. “Their technology is a closely guarded secret and we have not been able to acquire it for our own. I can assure you, however,” he added, “that when you aid us in achieving the final extermination of the barbaric Teuthis race—and thus ending forever their corruption and their destructive ways—you will be welcome here as beloved and appreciated new inhabitants of the sphere.”

  “How…marvelous,” said Calhoun.

  ii.

  Moke loved the shuttlebay.

  As far as the adopted son of Mackenzie Calhoun was concerned, it was the most interesting place on the vessel. Certainly it was the most cavernous. Granted, the holodeck could provide venues that seemed far bigger, even endless. But deep in his heart he knew they were fake. He had grown up on a world with vast, unlimited vistas; fakery was a poor substitute, and so he opted for the area on the ship that had the most space in which to move about.

  In addition to being huge, the shuttlebay was often unmanned. The only time people were overseeing it was when the shuttles were going in and out, or if some cargo was being brought aboard and the loading needed to be administered. So it was a good place for him to be when he was seeking solitude.

  He had been seeking it a lot lately.

  It had not been all that long since Xyon had returned to the Excalibur and reentered Mackenzie Calhoun’s life. Nevertheless it seemed an infinity to Moke, who felt as if Calhoun had little enough time to accord him as it was. Now that Xyon had shown up, it was not only a further distraction for Mac, but yet another reminder that Moke wasn’t in fact his actual son.

  Moke had brought a rocketball down with him and was casually bouncing it off one of the shuttlebay doors. Propelled by special gloves, a rocketball was capable of moving up to two hundred miles per hour, and players had to wear light armor to protect them from possibly winding up with holes in their torsos. But without the gloves to interact with them, it was just a normal black sphere.

  He knew that the Excalibur was in trouble. That it had wound up in some bizarre and different universe, or something like that. He’d picked that much up between Calhoun’s public announcements and the conversations he’d overheard from various officers. He knew there was nothing he could possibly do about it, and he hated that. He hated that he had nothing to contribute to the situation.

  He hated that his playmate, Xy, whom he had attended to when Xy was an infant, had now grown up and passed him and was an adult. He knew it was because of an ultimately tragic condition—that Xy’s peculiar Hermat/Vulcan biology was causing him to age at an insanely accelerated rate. The one he should really feel sorry for was Xy. Yet he couldn’t help but focus on his own problems and frustrations. And Moke knew that was selfish, but that was how he felt and he couldn’t do anything to change it.

  He hated that he felt like an ingrate. After all, Calhoun had taken him in when he really didn’t have to. He was trying his best. So why this burgeoning resentment?

  Lost in thought, Moke hit the black ball harder than he intended to, and it bounced past him and off into the far end of the shuttlebay. He heard it ricocheting around, and suddenly it ceased. His eyes narrowed as he peered into the dimly lit far corners of the bay. “Is somebody there?” he called.

  For a moment there was no reply, and then a figure stepped into view.

  Moke let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh. It’s you. Can I have my ball back?”

  Xyon palmed the ball for a moment, then flipped it in a casual overhand manner. Moke snagged it on the fly. “Nice catch,” said Xyon.

  Moke turned his back to him. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “The captain asked me to check on you,” replied Xyon. “Looked all over the place before I thought to ask Morgan. She told me you were down here.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t have.”

  Xyon made as if to leave, and then paused. Uncertainty played across his features for a moment and then, as if making up his mind about something, he approached Moke. “Look, kid…”

  “I’m not a kid.”

  “Fine. Look, old man, you can’t keep resenting the hell out of me just because I’m alive.”

  “It’s not just because you’re alive.”

  “Then what—?”

  “It’s because you made Mac think you were dead. You hurt him. And I’m worried you might hurt him again.”

  Xyon gave him a look of total disgust. “Oh, please. You know as well as I that Mackenzie Calhoun can take anything life can serve up. The man’s a rock. He doesn’t need you keeping a careful eye on his feelings or trying to protect him. This is entirely about you not—”

  Then he stopped talking and his eyes widened. “Grozit,” he whispered.

  Moke was unimpressed. “What? You’re trying to sca
re me now or something? Takes more than that.” He tossed the ball toward the doors without bothering to look where he’d thrown it. “If you think you can fool me into…”

  Then he realized that there had been no sound of the ball striking the door.

  He turned to see what had happened to it, and his throat closed up. He tried to say something, to respond to what he was seeing in some oral manner, but no sound was managing to escape.

  Something was oozing into the shuttlebay between the doors. It didn’t seem at all possible, because the doors should have been completely sealed. There couldn’t be any sort of leak. But something had managed to…to pry the doors open ever so slightly.

  At first Moke thought that the gelatinous mass of whatever-it-was outside was seeping in through the rift in the doors, but he quickly realized that wasn’t the case. Because whatever the nature of the environment was outside, it was clearly formless. And this thing, this—whatever it was—definitely had form and substance.

  It was thick and gray, and at first it was insinuating itself slowly in between the doors. But with every passing second it started to move faster and faster, and in no time at all was practically pouring in. As it did so, it continued to take shape. Moke had never seen such long, thick appendages before, and was unfamiliar with the word “tentacle.” Xyon, however, knew perfectly well what tentacles were. He did not, however, know what he was seeing coming into existence about twenty feet in front of him. He had never seen anything like it, and would have been perfectly happy to have gone the rest of his life with that always being the case.

  Moke backed up and backed up, and thumped against Xyon’s chest, since Xyon hadn’t budged from where he’d been standing. He wasn’t paralyzed with fear so much as with complete shock. The jolt of Moke backing into him, however, was enough to jostle him from his paralysis. “Let’s go!” he shouted, yanking Moke back as they started to make for the door.