by Peter David
But was she to be blamed for it? Really blamed? The circumstances she had been thrust into were just insane! How was any reasonable being supposed to survive? To keep one’s head screwed on, one’s perspective in the right place, given what she had to deal with? There was no way, absolutely no way that someone who had simply been yanked out of their proper time and place and deposited elsewhere could just fit in. There was—
Laughter.
She heard laughter from up the corridor. Loud and boisterous, and normal, oh so normal. She had almost forgotten what normal crew interaction, people enjoying each other’s company because they belonged together, could sound like. She headed toward the noise and saw that it was coming from within the armory. Somebody was leaning right in the doorway, and as a result the doors were staying open. He was laughing along with the others within, and M’Ress felt somewhat cheered by it. . . .
And then she heard a familiar voice saying, “So there we were, all the officers having been reduced to the ages of children, running around . . . it was insanity! You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Starfleet veterans making comments like, ‘Are we there yet?’ and ‘He made a face at me!’ ”
Still more laughter as Arex held court, easily entertaining the roomful of security officers. Arex, who was as time-displaced as she was, and didn’t seem to be aware of it. She had forgotten about him, or perhaps simply blanked it out because it was so frustrating to her. Arex, unlike M’Ress, had shown a stunning knack for adapting to the new environment in which they’d found themselves. His psych profile had come back clean, and his compatibility with the world around him had been so complete that he’d been installed as security head of the Trident. It was a position that he had taken to with utter facility.
Arex spotted her standing outside, peering into the private lounge used by security . . . the lounge referred to informally as “the Pit.” “M’Ress!” he called. “I was just telling them about the time—”
“Yes, I heard what you were telling them.” She folded her arms and looked slightly disapproving. “The crew turned into children and we all almost died. Very funny. I’m sure there are dozens of near-death experiences you can turn into hilarious anecdotes.”
Arex didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, more than dozens, I’m sure. Want to help?”
She wanted to wring his scrawny neck, was what she wanted to do. Instead she said, “I have to get back to the science department,” and she bolted from the Pit as quickly as she could.
She hated the words that had been coming out of her mouth. She hated the type of person she was becoming in order to have said them. She hated the way people were looking at her, and the way she was looking at herself.
And as new laughter reached her ears from behind . . . laughter that she was convinced was at her expense, even though it very likely wasn’t . . . most of all, she hated her life.
“That could have gone better, XO,” Shelby said scoldingly.
They had remained in the conference lounge while Lieutenant Commander Gleau went on about his duties. Shelby hadn’t needed to tell Mueller that she wanted her to remain; Mueller simply knew. That was the way she was.
“I’m shocked you would say that, Captain,” Mueller returned drily. “And here I thought Lieutenant M’Ress’s outburst was the height of professionalism.”
“She’s been through a good deal, XO, and a little understanding could go a long way to—”
Mueller rose from her chair even as she thumped an open palm on the table. “I knew it. I knew it would come to this.”
“Come to ‘this’? What ‘this’ are you talking about?” inquired Shelby, genuinely puzzled.
“This business of having to watch ourselves with a crewman. Of having to take some sort of extra care not to upset her or disturb her because of her,” and she made quotation marks with her fingers, “‘special circumstances.’ ”
“You’re overreacting, Kat,” Shelby told her.
“No, I don’t think I am, Elizabeth,” Mueller replied. She was circling the room, as was her wont when she was annoyed about something. “The simple truth is that everyone on this ship—everyone in the galaxy—has their own individual problems, their own set of circumstances. We cannot afford to start treating one crewman differently, more tentatively, from another. We have to expect the same level of competency, the same level of professionalism from each of them. The moment we start bending on that, the moment we give one crewman some sort of preferential treatment over another, we risk undermining the entire chain of command.”
“I think you’re overdramatizing things a bit.”
“Overreacting, overdramatizing. But perhaps I’m also overright.”
Shelby, watching the determined annoyance of her first officer, still couldn’t quite suppress a smile. “Is that a word? Overright?”
Mueller paused a moment and then said, with utter certainty, “No. But it could be if I wanted it to be. And I’m not overreacting or overdramatizing.”
“Yes, you are,” Shelby said with calm insistence. “I hardly think that displaying some simple understanding and compassion for a woman who has lost everything she ever knew is going to send Starfleet tumbling into chaos.”
“It’s easy to make light of it,” said Mueller. “Don’t you think I’d rather display sympathy for her than be a hard-ass?”
That was a bit more than Shelby could take. “No,” she replied, “I think you rather like being a hard-ass.”
Mueller paused, and a smile touched the edges of her mouth. “All right, fair enough,” she said. “But if I weren’t, you wouldn’t want me for your second-in-command.”
She had to admit to herself that there was some validity to that. “True enough,” she allowed, but then said firmly, “but there has to be a balance, Kat. A balance between hardlining on the regs and going soft. I wasn’t able to achieve it with my previous second-in-command on the Exeter. One of the reasons I wanted you—”
“Is because I’m just that damned fabulous,” Mueller said, deadpan.
“There’s that, of course. I also believed that someone capable of being in synch with Mackenzie Calhoun would also be in synch with me. I’d like to think that was part of what influenced you to accept the position.”
“There was that . . . and the fact that I thought Mac was dead when I took the post,” Mueller told her.
Shelby looked at her askance. Something in the way she had said that . . .
“Kat?” she said slowly, cautiously. “Are you saying you’d rather have served as Mac’s second-in-command? Stayed with Excalibur?”
“Actually, I would have preferred to stay on night side,” Mueller replied. “I never had any particular ambition to graduate to the post of second, much less command. But I was beginning to feel pressure to advance—”
“From Starfleet?”
“Bugger Starfleet. From my mother.”
“Ah,” Shelby said, suppressing a smile. “Understood.”
“However, once you and Calhoun were married, I felt it would not be wise for me to work directly with him. He is a good and faithful man, but sooner or later . . . well . . . it would have been inevitable.”
Shelby leaned back and stared at her. She wasn’t quite sure she was hearing what she was, in fact, hearing. “Are you saying that, had you taken a position as second-in-command on Excalibur, Mac would have wound up cheating on me with you?”
“Of course,” Mueller said, with such confidence that Shelby could scarcely believe it. “You know perfectly well that he and I had a relationship before. Sex would have been a natural outlet for the pressure of duty, and we would have been logical partners for one another. I doubt very much Mac would become involved with any other in his crew; he would consider it inappropriate, from a command point of view, if nothing else. But he and I, well . . .” She shrugged. “And I admit, when it comes to him, I do not always act in the wisest manner. Far better for all concerned this way.”
Shelby was amazed at the woman’s forthri
ght way of addressing the subject. “So you’re saying that, even had he endeavored to be faithful, you would have approached him and he would have been unable to resist.”
“That’s correct.”
“Well, well,” Shelby said, after a moment to take that in, “it appears someone has a rather inflated opinion of themselves.”
Without a word, Mueller reached back and undid her hair. She shook it out, long and blonde, tumbling around her face and shoulders. As a few stray strands danced around her face, she moistened her lips, giving them a pouting, provocative look. Her cobalt-blue eyes seemed to drill right through the back of Shelby’s head. Mueller leaned forward on her elbow, and Shelby detected a faint aroma of jasmine coming off her that she hadn’t noticed before.
Her voice was low and throaty and laden with the images of sweaty and twisted bedsheets as she said, “Men want me . . . and women want to be me. Any questions?”
Inwardly, Shelby couldn’t decide whether Mueller really was as utterly irresistable as she was making herself out to be, or whether she was just the most egotistical individual she’d ever met. Or both. But was it really ego if one could genuinely deliver on the boasts? Opting not to consider it too closely, lest she come up with an answer that she wasn’t going to like, Shelby said with admirable cool, “No . . . an order. Ease up on M’Ress.”
Mueller was visibly surprised. She let out an exasperated snort as she leaned back and started to put her hair back in the bun. “I wasn’t going hard on her, Captain. And have I ever said that you occasionally suffer from single-mindedness?”
“Yes, you were, and yes, you have.”
Mueller sniffed with mild disdain, and then the intraship com system hailed them. “Shelby here.”
“This is Takahashi,” came the familiar drawl from Romeo Takahashi up at ops. “Got a message incoming from planet Thallon 18.”
“Thallon 18.” She looked to Mueller.
Immediately Mueller rattled off, “Thallon 18: one of a group of worlds in Thallonian space with no star or planetary designation other than the simple numbering system. Used primarily by the Thallonians—when they were in power—for colonizing and, in some cases, as punishment worlds. Residents of the varied worlds tend to rename the planets to suit their own tastes, but the ‘official’ designation is how we list them. In this particular case, Thallon 18 is a class-M world, populated for the most part by a race calling themselves . . .” She paused a moment, and Shelby could almost see her thumbing through a mental file of index cards. “The Markanians.”
“Are we live with them, Hash?”
“No, Captain. Recorded transmission only.”
“Pipe it down here, then,” she said.
“Coming down.”
The screen in the conference lounge immediately flared to life, and an individual who seemed rather aged appeared on the screen. At least that was what Shelby garnered from his general attitude and deportment, since it was hard to tell simply from looking at him how old he might be in Markanian years. His skin was mottled blue, his eyes sideways crescents that seemed to have bits of dried crust in the edges. He had no hair, but instead what appeared to be streaks of lighter color in the very skin of his head, which might once have been occupied by hair. “Attention, Starfleet vessel. I am Furvus,” he said, “of the ruling council of Markania.”
“A.k.a. Thallon 18,” put in Mueller.
“I know, Kat.”
“We have a situation on our world that we believe will be of interest to you,” continued the one who had identified himself as Furvus. “It is our understanding that the Federation is here in what was once Thallonian space for the purpose of keeping the peace, and preventing outside forces from exploiting various worlds. Matters have occurred on our world that, I believe, fit that criteria.”
“Let’s hope so,” murmured Mueller, and Shelby knew exactly what she was referring to. They had received summonses from three different planets in the past weeks, and in each case it had involved matters that were either sublimely trivial or outside their purview as a starship. The worst had been the high monarch of Bixilfiz, who—it turned out—had wanted Shelby to be the mother of his child. Putting aside that Bixilfiz biology wasn’t remotely compatible with human (what with them being a race that looked somewhat like overgrown earthworms), it had quickly become apparent that the whole thing was a stunt designed to make his mate jealous. It had worked a bit too well; in anger, she had retaliated by falling upon him and devouring him.
“Our situation,” Furvus continued, “is related to what can only be described as an advanced sort of transportational device, called a . . .” He paused, wanting to get the word right. “A Gateway, I believe,” he said.
“Freeze,” Shelby said instantly, and the image of Furvus obediently froze in position. She looked at Mueller significantly, for she had already brought Mueller up to speed on the nature of the holoconference from the previous day.
Shelby was pleased to see that she was so in synch with Mueller, that Mueller didn’t even have to wait to be prompted. “Mueller to conn.”
“Conn. Gold here,” came the brisk reply.
“Mr. Gold, set course for Thallon 18.”
As per his custom, Lieutenant Mick Gold didn’t bother to wait for the inevitable subsequent order to actually send the ship hurtling off in the direction he’d set it for. Instead he simply said, “On our way.”
“Let’s listen to the rest of the message,” Shelby said briskly, “and then I want to get on the horn with Mac. I’ll want Si Cwan’s input on this, too.”
“Impressive,” said Mueller thoughtfully. “No mention of this ‘Gateway’ business for centuries, and then all of a sudden, we have Gateway ramifications and scenarios coming out our ears.”
“Maybe you could solve it,” suggested Shelby, “by leaning on the table, letting down your hair, and speaking in a husky voice to the Iconians.”
Mueller’s expression didn’t so much as twitch. “Perhaps I will at that.”
“And, Kat . . .”
“Yes, Captain?”
“You couldn’t have seduced Mac, no matter how hard you tried.”
Mueller laughed softly. “You’re probably right, Captain.”
As for Shelby, she wasn’t quite so sure, but was pleased she wasn’t going to have to find out.
6
AERON
BURKITT WAS NOT AMUSED, even as he expertly guided his glider through the expanse of the Outer Swamp. The Warmaster was partly annoyed with himself, having let himself be pulled into a situation that he could have—indeed, probably should have—dismissed out of hand. But the entire proposition had seemed just interesting enough to ensnare his attention, and he had to admit that the conditions of it . . . a meeting out in the desolate swamp, coming alone, all of that . . . was serving to pique his interest in this business.
Truthfully, he had other concerns that should have taken precedence over this meeting. There had still been no change in Tsana’s condition. As he had further surmised, the Counselars were already beginning to jockey for influence and position, and it was anyone’s guess how all of this was going to turn out. So when this “opportunity” had presented itself, Burkitt could just as easily have dismissed the entire proposal out of hand. That, in fact, had been his first impulse. “I don’t have time to play games and agree to clandestine meetings in the middle of swamps!” he’d said impatiently.
Yet here he was. Which made him either the biggest fool or the canniest individual on the planet. Well, maybe it was a little bit of both, when you got right down to it.
Whoever this mysterious “Smyt” was that he was supposed to be meeting with, he certainly knew what he was doing. He had given specific coordinates for Burkitt to arrive at, and sure enough, as Burkitt approached them, there was a sizeable clearance up ahead. As opposed to the marshland, which dominated the area, here was a nice little vacant island that would easily accommodate Burkitt’s personal vessel. He shut down the antigrav, switching to gl
ideand-land mode, and expertly guided the small ship into a landing. He’d always been rather proud of the vehicle; despite its size, it was quite fast and very agile, capable of outrunning and outpowering far larger vessels. The last thing Burkitt wanted to do was botch the landing and sink the ship in the swamp.
He also saw that there was someone waiting on the island for him. He didn’t appear to have any sort of vessel with him, and Burkitt couldn’t help but wonder how in the world he had gotten there. The individual was at the far end of the island, standing with his back to a grove of trees, giving Burkitt ample room for setting his vehicle down, which he did with practiced ease. Once settled, he didn’t get out immediately, but took the time to study the person with whom he had this most unusual appointment. He was just standing there, looking rather placid. At first Burkitt thought that it was a trick of the light, but no . . . the fellow’s skin was genuinely pale yellow. He had no chin to speak of. His hands were draped behind his back, his expression open, even pleasant. He seemed as if he felt utterly in control of the situation. That, of course, was enough to make Burkitt suspicious.
After deciding that he’d made the man wait long enough, Burkitt emerged from his vehicle and stepped out onto the island. His nose wrinkled as the smell of the swamp hit him. The air was thick with noxious fumes and the smell of dead and decaying matter. He swatted at the air, assorted insects immediately coming from nowhere, converging on him as if sensing a potential new source for nutrition. This Smyt, by contrast, didn’t seem bothered by them at all. Either he had remarkable self-control, or else the insects didn’t want to get near him. Burkitt wasn’t pleased about either prospect. The sun was low on the horizon, and the Warmaster suddenly had no desire to remain there any longer than necessary.
“Smyt?” inquired Burkitt.
“I’m impressed that you came,” admitted the other. “I was worried that you might think this to be some sort of trap.”
“I still do consider that a possibility,” Burkitt said evenly. That much was evinced by the fact that Burkitt was keeping his hand resting comfortably and securely on the butt of his weapon, which was tucked in his right holster. “And I can assure you that, if this is a trap, you will not live to see it sprung.”