by Peter David
He was astounded when the boy replied, “Respect is earned, not given.”
Kemper’s mouth opened and closed without a word uttered. A moment later he had composed himself, and then he said, “Respect, boy, is what rank entitles one to. An officer in Starfleet is granted it automatically. He doesn’t have to jump through hoops to earn your respect. You give it and you’re glad to give it, do you understand?” When an answer wasn’t instantly forthcoming, he repeated louder, “I said do you understand?”
“No,” said the boy.
The other cadets were watching the proceedings with mute shock. The reactions were mixed: Clearly some admired the young man for his nerve, while others thought he was insane for giving a senior student this much grief. This angered Kemper. As far as he was concerned, reactions shouldn’t be mixed. There should be one and only one: anger that someone who clearly had no concept of how Starfleet operated was being allowed anywhere near the Academy. Well, lessons were going to have to be taught immediately.
“Drop,” he said, “and give me forty.”
The boy whom he’d taken to calling “scar face” rather than “farmboy” simply stared blankly at him.
“I said drop and give me forty!”
“Drop what? Forty what?”
Looking somewhat embarrassed, Detwiler said, “He wants you to lower yourself to the ground and do forty pushups for him. You know: like this.” She demonstrated with her arms pumping up and down.
The boy said nothing. Just stared at Detwiler, then at Kemper.
A slow smile spread across the boy’s face.
“Do you think this is some sort of joke?” Kemper asked him. And when the smile widened, he said, “Perhaps I should call Xenex and tell your daddy his son has got no chance of ever being a Starfleet officer.”
The smile faded instantly. Even more curiously, the scar on his face became slightly brighter against the skin. “You,” he said, “do not speak of my father.”
Kemper advanced on him, and as he drew closer, his voice got louder and his manner angrier. “I will speak of whomever I wish to speak whenever I wish to speak of him. You have no say in the matter, because you are a plebe, and you will do as you are ordered, when you are ordered, with no question, no thought, but simple obedience, and if you don’t like it then you can climb right back on the shuttle and head back to Xenex, and tell your daddy that—”
It was the last thing he remembered before he woke up in the infirmary three hours later.
ii.
Commander Edward Jellico, dean of students, looked up from the report on his computer…the one that had been dutifully filed by Cadets Detwiler and Sullivan at the time of the incident. The descriptions of the event matched up so perfectly that Jellico was almost inclined to suspect collusion. It seemed preferable, because the truth of the matter was harder to absorb.
The young man known as M’k’n’zy of Calhoun sat on the other side of Jellico’s desk, his hands folded on his lap. He wasn’t moving at all. He might have been carved from a block of marble. Jellico had seen dead people who were livelier. He tried to imagine for a moment what it would be like entering a darkened room, knowing this M’k’n’zy was waiting for you, trying to locate him with your normal five senses and hoping that movement on his part might give his position away. He had to believe that anyone in that predicament wouldn’t be getting out of it in one piece.
“You broke his jaw,” said an incredulous Jellico.
M’k’n’zy said nothing.
“With one punch.”
Still nothing.
“That he never saw coming.” He looked at the screen again. “His friend, Cadet Williams, says he never even saw you throw it although he swears he was looking right at you. Cadet Detwiler says she spotted a ‘slight movement’ on your part, but didn’t know it was a punch until Mr. Kemper collapsed. And Mr. Kemper, when it comes to the art of self-defense, is in the top one percent of his class.” Jellico leaned back a moment, shutting off the computer screen and simply taking in the situation. “You’ve made quite a first impression, and I don’t mean that in a positive sense.”
M’k’n’zy continued to say nothing. He just sat there and stared. It was unnerving. Finally Jellico prompted, “Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“I warned him,” said M’k’n’zy after a moment.
Jellico stood, walking forcefully around his desk. “You don’t understand, Mach…Muckuh…Much…” He grimaced over his inability to say the name correctly and then tried to glide by. “It’s not your place to warn a fellow cadet of anything. There is no excuse for such behavior, and whatever excuse you may offer is of no relevance.”
“It is to me,” M’k’n’zy told him.
“Don’t you understand? This is not Xenex! You don’t get to just smack people around if you don’t like what they have to say. You’re not a warlord here!”
“No. I am a warlord…here.” And he tapped his chest, over his heart.
Jellico stared at him. “Just out of a sense of morbid curiosity,” he said at last, “what did Kemper say?”
“He spoke disrespectfully of my father.”
“I see,” said Jellico. “And you hospitalized him for it. Doesn’t that strike you as something of an overreaction? If I contacted your father, what do you think he would say?”
And M’k’n’zy looked up at him with just the slightest flash of pain in his eyes, which was quickly replaced with steel. “I think my father would approve. Then again…my father was beaten to death by our oppressors years ago. I saw it happen. I was helpless to stop him. So I’m just guessing.”
Then M’k’n’zy looked away. Jellico felt a coldness in his chest, a sense of quiet frustration…and also chagrin.
“Shall I go home now?” asked M’k’n’zy after a long silence.
Jellico felt that, in some respects, that would probably be the best move. But he couldn’t find it in himself to send the first Xenexian Starfleet candidate packing. He thought of his oath. To seek out new life. Well, new life had come knocking on the Academy door. Slamming it in the new life’s face somehow seemed…lazy, if nothing else.
With a tone that was slightly softer, but still firm, he said, “You don’t get off quite that easily, mister. Look…I don’t think you’re really understanding what I’m saying. You’re here to learn rules. Our rules. Rules that have been developed over a period of many, many years. Rules without which Starfleet could not function. If you cannot learn them, cannot abide by them, then you have no place in Starfleet and no place here.” He paused. M’k’n’zy said nothing. “Well? Do you have a response to that?”
“Was one required?”
Jellico sighed and sagged against his desk, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly. “Frankly, there’re only two reasons I’m not packing you back off to Xenex right now. First, the strong opinion of Cadet Detwiler, a fine third-year student, who asserts that Cadet Kemper was endeavoring to provoke you into a display, and that Kemper got what he deserved. And the second is that Captain Jean-Luc Picard went to a great deal of time and effort to arrange for your enrollment here at the Academy. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t firmly believe you had tremendous potential. If he feels that strongly, then attention must be paid.
“Look…Cadet…” Jellico continued. “I know this is an adjustment for you to make. From what I understand, on Xenex you’re something of a planetary hero. Legions of men fought and died on your behalf.”
“They fought and died on behalf of independence,” M’k’n’zy said. “I was an instrument of an ideal, not the ideal itself.”
“Well, Starfleet is an ideal as well, Cadet,” said Jellico. “An ideal of discovery, of exploration, and of mutual cooperation. That means we all work together. And that’s not going to be possible if you knock out your co-workers. Whatever it is you’ve accomplished, whoever it is that you were, back on Xenex…here you’re simply a first-year cadet, the lowest rung on the ladder. As such, you don’t
get to just go around breaking the jaws of upperclassmen. A superior officer must be obeyed.”
“He’s not superior to me.”
“In rank, yes, he is. Is it possible that you’re the better man? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But you don’t get to prove it by dislocating his jaw. Otherwise the entire command structure of a starship would fall apart, if every order had to be backed up by a clenched fist and a willingness to use force to have an order carried out.
“You’ve had one cause for the entirety of your life. That has been achieved. Now you must find a new cause. And if you want this place to be your cause, then you must learn the best way to pursue it. Because unlike your previous situation, where the enemy was right in front of you and you could hack away at him…here, your greatest enemies come from within. Your own uncertainty, your own fear, may make you doubt yourself and even turn away from the fleet. You see, you…”
“All right,” the young man said abruptly. “You’ve made yourself clear.”
Jellico paused, and then said, “It will help you greatly in getting through the Academy, when addressing those who are your teachers, to add the word ‘sir’ at the end of declarative statements.”
“Why?” asked M’k’n’zy.
Opting for the better part of valor, Jellico said, “It’s a grammatical societal custom. Like ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”
“Oh.” M’k’n’zy nodded thoughtfully, then said, “You’ve made yourself clear…sir.”
“And your decision?” he said immediately.
“I need a new cause in my life, so…I will learn.”
“I’m pleased to hear that. To be honest, considering the way you took Kemper down, I think you might best be suited to a career in Starfleet security. Or perhaps in one of our special armed services divisions. The ground pounders. You might be a formidable—”
“Command,” said M’k’n’zy.
“I beg your par—?”
“I will lead,” M’k’n’zy said with quiet conviction. “I will be a leader of men. That is what I must do. I…do not know how else to be…sir.”
“The command track would be somewhat challenging for you.”
“More challenging than liberating a world?”
“There are different kinds of challenges, Cadet. Furthermore, you have to understand: There cannot be a replay of what happened,” he said, his face grim. “Despite the recommendations of both Detwiler and Picard, the bottom line is that—purely officially—you weren’t yet in attendance at the Academy. You hadn’t gone through orientation and indoctrination. So your assault on Cadet Kemper can technically be seen as something that occurred prior to your attending Starfleet Academy and, hence, outside of my jurisdiction. But now you’re officially here, and that particular loophole has been closed up. You cannot beat up a fellow cadet again.”
“Can I beat up a teacher?” asked M’k’n’zy.
Jellico blinked. “Are you trying to be funny?”
“No. Simply trying to understand limits.”
“No. You can’t beat up a teacher. You can’t beat up anybody. If you’re serious about following a command track, you’re going to have to find ways to make people want to follow you that don’t involve brute force or leadership through the example of slaughtering an enemy. Is that clear?”
“Yes.” He paused. “Is this a grammatical ‘sir’ situation?”
“Never hurts to play it safe,” said Jellico.
“Very well. Yes sir.”
“Good.”
Sensing that they were done, M’k’n’zy rose. So did Jellico, who then said, “By the way…just a suggestion. Your name is a bit of a mouthful. To accommodate non-Xenexian tongues, you might want to consider a variation of it.”
“Such as?”
“Well…” He glanced back at M’k’n’zy’s name as it appeared on his computer screen. “From the phonetic spelling of your name, I’d say something like ‘Mackenzie’ would be about right. And the name of both your home village and clan is ‘Calhoun.’ So ‘Mackenzie Calhoun’ might be easier for people to say.”
“I’m not sure if I can say it.” M’k’n’zy tried “Mackenzie” several times, allowing it to roll off his tongue. The fifth time he said it, Jellico nodded approvingly. The Xenexian shrugged. It meant little to him. “Mackenzie Calhoun.”
“Excellent. Well, then…” and he clapped a hand on M’k’n’zy’s shoulder. “You have a lot of work ahead of you, then.”
“Yes sir.”
“But I have confidence in you.”
“Yes sir,” he said again, as if confidence in him was the most expected thing in the world. “As do I.”
“Good. You see, it’s—”
“But if Kemper mentions my father again, next time I will break him.”
Jellico sagged back into his chair.
“Sit down, Calhoun,” he said.
Calhoun sat.
The meeting took a while longer than Jellico had previously estimated.
iii.
“So! You’re One-Punch Calhoun.”
The newly dubbed Mackenzie Calhoun stood in the doorway of the room he’d been assigned to. The bags containing his few possessions were already waiting for him. The room was simple, functional, stark. Calhoun had certainly had less posh accommodations in his life, so the room didn’t seem so terrible to him.
He was slightly thrown off, however, by the presence of the other student. For one thing, he had the longest chin Calhoun had ever seen. His hair was brown and shaggy, and there was an air of mischief about him which Calhoun automatically found appealing. In the accent of his voice, he sounded a bit like Picard. Furthermore, Calhoun’s innate knack for sensing danger told him that this fellow posed no threat to him. Nevertheless, being a territorial creature, Calhoun was not ecstatic over the fact that this man was standing here in what was supposed to be his room.
“Who are you?” Calhoun demanded.
The other young man put up his hands in mock defensive posture. “Hey, don’t hit me, squire. I’m just unpacking my things.” That was indeed what he appeared to be doing, putting his clothing away into a cabinet.
“I thought I was staying here.”
“You are. I’m your roommate. Everyone doubles up at the Academy. You didn’t know?” Calhoun shook his head. “Hope that doesn’t pose a problem, squire.”
“It may if you keep calling me ‘squire.’”
“Fair enough,” said the other cadet. He extended a hand, grinning. “Vincent Wexler’s the name.”
Calhoun stared at the outstretched hand a moment and then, sensing he was supposed to do something, put out his own right hand. “Mackenzie Calhoun,” he said. They both stood there a moment, their respective hands facing each other. Finally Wexler reached over, took Calhoun’s right hand with his own right, and then very slowly raised it up and down. Calhoun stared at him. “Another custom?” he said.
“One of many,” affirmed Wexler. Then he turned back to unpacking the rest of his belongings into a cabinet. “I took this dresser if you don’t mind. Somewhat random choice, really. So if you have a strong preference, I can unpack—”
“I don’t care,” said Calhoun.
“Fine then. So…is it true what they say?” He put away the last of his things, slid the drawer closed, then flopped down onto a bed and grinned at Calhoun. “Did you really take down a fourth-year cadet with one punch?”
“Yes.”
“Supposedly he’s over in the infirmary getting a broken jaw patched up. Even with the rebuilt bone, he’ll still be talking out the side of his face for a week. Amazing. How did you do it?”
Calhoun shrugged. He couldn’t quite understand the fascination everyone at the Academy seemed to have with his encounter with Kemper. He hadn’t been able to express to Jellico what he was really feeling: that it was something between two men. One clearly goading the other, and the person who was being goaded retaliating. To Calhoun’s mind, it was something that should be of little to no interest to
anyone else. Disagreements happened on Xenex all the time. If Xenexians spent time prattling on and on about every fistfight or violent encounter, nothing would ever get done.
“I hit him,” said Calhoun, unable to think of any other way to put it.
“Pardon my saying so,” said Wexler, looking him up and down, “but you don’t seem the muscular, burly type.”
“Muscles are measured in quality, not quantity,” Calhoun told him. “Strength isn’t needed to break bones. Just speed and leverage.”
“I’ll definitely keep that in mind.” His eyes glistened with curiosity. “So you were some sort of army captain back where you come from? Hard to believe. You seem so young.”
“Xenex tends to age you.”
“What did you do back there? I bet it was absolutely fascinating.”
Calhoun didn’t feel absolutely fascinating. He felt more and more uncomfortable. As if he was being subjected to intense scrutiny from everyone around him. How much of an outsider did he have to be, anyway?
“Nothing,” Calhoun said abruptly. “Nothing that interesting. There’s no point dwelling on the past.”
Wexler seemed briefly surprised, but then he nodded approvingly. “Abso-bloody-lutely. That’s why they call it the past, after all. Because it’s past. Although,” he added with a lopsided smile, “you will allow me my indulgences, I hope, if I embrace my own past.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Wexlers have a long and proud history of service to Starfleet,” Wexler told him. “My parents, for example, are brilliant scientists, and have served Starfleet medical and biological research for many years. And I’ve been told I have this frankly annoying habit of bringing it up at every opportunity. So I apologize in advance if you find it annoying.”
“Don’t concern yourself. I’ll simply ignore you,” said Calhoun as he proceeded to unpack his belongings.
Wexler continued to chat politely and meaninglessly about this and that. It was when Calhoun pulled out a long object wrapped in cloth that Wexler fell suddenly silent. “Is that,” he asked finally, “what I think it is?”