by Peter David
She swiveled the computer screen around so that the vow of chastity was displayed upon the screen. She watched his face carefully, saw his gaze flicker to the screen, saw him recoil slightly like a vampire faced with garlic or holy water. Then, somewhat to her surprise, his irreverent and annoyingly attractive smile reappeared upon his face. “Anything,” he said with as much suavity as he could muster under the circumstances, “to maintain harmony in the family.”
Gleau leaned forward and said, “Computer . . . identify via voiceprint and retinal scan.”
“Identifying, Lieutenant Commander Gleau,” the computer said promptly. “Science officer, U.S.S. Trident. Serial Number S152–520 SP.”
“Computer . . . note and log that I have read the Oath of Chastity presented to me by Captain Elizabeth Shelby, at this time, on this date, and that I agree to abide by its stipulations and decrees.”
“Noted and logged.”
He nodded once as if in satisfaction of a job well done, and then rose from his chair. “There. That’s attended to. Now, if there’s nothing else, Captain . . .”
“One other thing, actually.” He waited, and she said, “There are to be no recriminations against Lieutenant M’Ress for this action. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly, Captain,” said Gleau without hesitation . . . so little hesitation, in fact, that it left Shelby nervous and silently contemplative long after Gleau had left her office.
ii.
The ground was flat and barren, and Si Cwan braced himself, balancing on the balls of his feet, keeping one hand outstretched to ward off blows while the other arm, back and cocked, had a sword leveled and ready. He was faced with three opponents, all clad entirely in black from head to toe. When they moved across the rocky terrain, coming in from three sides, they made no sound whatsoever. He might as well have found himself facing ghosts. They disdained to walk like normal beings, instead vaulting from one spot to the next as they converged upon him.
“Care to join me?” he called. “There’s a sword right nearby you.”
Seated sedately on a rocky outcropping, Robin Lefler watched the proceedings with mild amusement. She knew that others swore by holodeck scenarios, but the truth was that she had never been much for such imaginings-givenairof-reality. Robin considered herself somewhat more down-to-earth than that . . . which, she supposed, was a bit ironic considering the environment in which she chose to make her life. Nevertheless, she always watched holodeck sessions with bemusement, not quite able to fathom for herself what the big attraction was. It was all so . . . so damned fake. The warm breeze blowing in wasn’t really there; the aridity of the atmosphere was meticulously manufactured, and could just have easily have been humid or filled with snow, all at the slightest request of the person playing out the scenario. It was all just smoke and mirrors, and Robin fancied herself just a little bit above all of it. It was nothing more than playtime, really, and she was an adult. An adult who had no time for such foolishness.
“I really don’t think so, Cwan,” she told him.
“It will be good training for you,” he said as he made a jump to the left. His attackers, drawing closer, followed suit. He took a step to the right. They matched it.
“Of course it will, Cwan. The very next time I’m attacked by sword-wielding ninjas, which I should mention happens absolutely all the time in the vacuum of space.”
“Tragic to see one so young become so cynical at such an early age.” Even as he spoke, he never took his eye off any of the individuals slowly approaching him.
Suddenly two of them moved in quickly, leaving the third one behind, presumably to mop up.
Their swords flashed in, and Cwan deftly stepped between them, his robes whirling out so he looked like a black-clad pinwheel. His red face was set in grim mirth as he drove an elbow into the face of one of the ninjas while slashing forward with his sword at the other. The ninja deflected the blow, and they exchanged rapid-fire parries and thrust so quickly that Lefler was unable to follow it.
Abruptly there was a tearing of cloth, a sudden intake of breath from Cwan, and Lefler saw that blood was welling from a ribbon cut on Cwan’s left forearm. “Si Cwan!” she called out in alarm. “That’s enough! Shut down the simulation!”
“Why? It’s just getting interesting!” he called out. The ninja was coming in fast, his sword whipping around, and Si Cwan bent backward, the blade slicing just above his face, missing him by a scant inch. Then he lashed out with one foot, striking the ninja’s sword from his hand, and before the ninja could recover, Si Cwan had run him through.
Even as the one ninja went down, the other two charged.
Lefler had seen enough. “End program!” she called.
The ninjas were still coming. Si Cwan forward-rolled past them, just managing to dodge their thrusts, and when he came up he was holding the fallen blade of the first ninja in his other hand. They came at him, and wielding both blades with equal dexterity—one in either hand—he managed to keep them back even as a roar of satisfied laughter erupted from his throat.
“End program!” an exasperated Lefler cried out, but the holodeck scenario continued to play out. “Si Cwan, did you key this to your voice only?”
“Of course!” he said cheerfully as he drove both ninjas back.
“Si Cwan, you idiot—!”
Before he could reply, one of the ninjas had suddenly somersaulted through the air. Si Cwan had no time to move before the ninja landed on his shoulders, wrapping his legs around Si Cwan’s throat. Si Cwan staggered, and tried to bring the swords up and around to stab at the ninja. But the ninja had a better vantage point, enabling him to deflect deftly each of Si Cwan’s thrusts.
“Si Cwan! You didn’t disengage the safety protocols, did you?” demanded Lefler.
Si Cwan didn’t answer. Instead he just struggled mightily as his eyes began to roll up into the top of his head.
“Oh, hell!” Lefler shouted. She hit her com badge. “Lefler to—”
Suddenly there was a blur of movement through the air, and then the ninja was gone. Instead of being atop Si Cwan, the ninja was sprawled on the ground, looking exceedingly confused.
Robin’s eyes widened as she saw that a woman had shown up, practically out of nowhere. She was wearing uniform slacks and boots, but she had removed her uniform jacket so that she was left in the red mockturtleneck. She had blond hair, an attitude that could have been chipped from a block of ice, and a vicious scar down one cheek.
Robin recognized her instantly as Kat Mueller. Formerly Mueller had been the nightside executive officer of the Excalibur, and as such had had almost no interaction with Robin. Nightside people in terms of their involvement with dayside were, well, like night and day. Now she was first officer aboard the Trident.
Mueller had picked up the sword that Si Cwan had suggested to Robin. She whipped it briskly through the air a couple of times to test its heft, then nodded approvingly. “This will do,” she said, and then glanced challengingly at Si Cwan. “I hope you have no problem with even odds.”
“None,” said Cwan.
The two remaining ninjas came at them, and briefly Cwan and Mueller were on the defensive. But in a short time they had turned it around, fighting the ninjas hard, driving them back, and further back. As fast and as deft with a blade as Si Cwan was, Mueller was faster still. The ninja she was facing didn’t come close to scoring with a thrust, while Mueller continued to advance. The clatter of metal upon metal was nearly deafening to Robin, and try as she might, she couldn’t visually track what was happening.
Then, with a final drive forward, Si Cwan and Mueller moving in perfect synchronization with one another, their respective sword blades darting through the air, they sent the weapons of their opponents clattering to the ground. The ninjas exchanged glances and then, as one, turned and bolted. Si Cwan laughed as the ninjas dashed away, leaving their fallen comrade behind. Mueller did not allow herself to make a sound, but she did smile in grim satisfaction, and she t
ossed off a mocking salute with her blade as her erstwhile opponents fled.
Si Cwan turned to her. “Well met, Commander,” he said approvingly. “Of course, I could have handled them on my own.”
“Of course,” said Mueller with a neutral smile. “And you are cordially welcome to continue telling yourself that.”
The Thallonian noble laughed at that with such gusto, and so much more loudly than he needed to, that Robin felt a sudden surge of annoyance with him. It was as if he was going out of his way to enjoy the woman’s company. “I have to admit, I did enjoy the element of danger since, as Lieutenant Lefler surmised,” and he pointed to Robin, “I did in fact disengage the safety protocols.”
“You did, in fact, do no such thing,” Mueller informed him. She seemed to enjoy the look of surprise on his face. “You may have thought you did, but the captain has installed absolute fail-safe overrides. You’re allowed to think that you have the safeties off, but the only one on the ship authorized to disconnect them is the captain, and she’s not about to.”
“Hardly seems sporting,” grumbled Si Cwan.
“Perhaps. But on her previous command, she wound up with her chief of security dead by unfortunate happenstance. So she swore there’d be no repeats during her watch here. My apologies that we went to extra effort to prevent you from being killed.”
“I shall have to learn to live with it.” Robin saw that his red skin was still glistening from the exertion of the battle, but he was breathing steadily . . . and he hadn’t taken his eyes off Mueller. “You are quite the swordswoman,” he allowed. “Is that where you got the scar . . . if you don’t mind my asking.”
“If I did mind your asking, it would be a bit late,” she said, as she touched the scar with one finger. “In answer to your question, yes. It’s a Heidelberg fencing scar. Don’t worry: I acquired it far too long ago to be selfconscious about it now.”
“Well, it gives your face character. Don’t you think it gives her face character, Robin?” he asked.
For no reason that she could determine, Robin felt her jaw tightening. “Absolutely. If she had any more character, she’d be someone else completely,” she said with exaggerated overpoliteness.
Mueller seemed to pick up on it. It was hard to tell. There was a slight flash of annoyed amusement on her face, and then it passed and Kat was once again her imperturbable self. “You did not join the ambassador in his . . . exercise,” she observed.
“Don’t have much skill with large cutting implements,” said Robin.
“I would be more than happy to give you some lessons, if you were interested.”
Again for no reason, Robin had a mental image of lunging forward and driving the sword directly through Mueller’s heart. My God, get a grip, Lefler, she scolded herself, and forced a smile. “That’s . . . quite all right. Maybe some other time.”
“As you wish,” said Mueller, tapping the sword to her forehead in a salute. Robin was unable to determine whether it was meant to be a mocking gesture or not, but as if she’d already forgotten that Lefler was there, Mueller turned her attention back to Si Cwan. “I came in person to inform you that the captain is extending an invitation for you and your sister to join her for dinner tonight. You as well, Lieutenant,” she added, without looking in Robin’s direction.
“I would be honored,” Si Cwan said. “I’ve certainly served enough time with Elizabeth Shelby aboard the Excalibur, but in this regard, it is as if I am making her acquaintance all over again. I am certain that I speak for Kalinda as well . . . and Robin . . . ?”
“Oh . . . wouldn’t miss it,” said Lefler with a cheery smile.
“Excellent. Nineteen hundred hours, if that will be suitable for you.”
She bowed slightly and formally to Si Cwan, and then, with a sideways twist of her arm, tossed the sword to Lefler. Robin took a step back, nervous and startled, and made a stab at catching it. It bounced off her knuckles and clattered to the floor. Mueller gave one of those annoying little smirk/smiles and let herself out of the holodeck.
“End program,” said Si Cwan, and the rough terrain was replaced with the familiar black walls and yellow grid. He took a few steps toward Robin, his hands draped behind his back, and said cheerfully, “Interesting woman, wouldn’t you say, Robin?”
“Fascinating.”
“Didn’t have much social intercourse with her back on the Excalibur.”
“Yes, well,” said Robin dryly, “I could tell just by the way she was looking at you that she’s probably interested in changing that situation.”
“Do you think so?”
“Oh, I’d bet on it.”
iii.
“Ohhhh, honey,” Morgan Primus said, “if I could reach right through this screen and give you a big hug, I would do that. You know that, don’t you?” “I know, I know,” sighed Robin. She was stretched out flat on her bed, looking at her mother’s image over the com screen in her quarters. Morgan, of course, was back on the Excalibur. She had already gone to bed when her daughter’s hail came through, but Morgan had promptly shaken off the last vestiges of sleep and pulled her full attention on Robin’s needs . . . although she did yawn a bit as she endeavored to keep her attention focused on the conversation at hand. “I appreciate that, Mother.”
“So the dinner didn’t go well, then?”
“Ohhh, the dinner went fine,” Robin said. She curled her legs up and pulled off her boots one by one. “It was pleasant enough catching up with everyone, I guess. Command—I’m sorry, Captain Shelby, had some interesting stories to tell, especially about everything that happened with her and Captain Calhoun during the whole gateways thing. Some of it is so crazy that it almost makes me wonder if they hallucinated the whole thing in some frostbitten haze. And their honeymoon on Xenex . . . now that was something else . . .”
“But none of that mattered all that much, did it,” asked her mother.
Robin tossed her second boot loudly to the floor. “No. Not much. God, Mother, you should have seen the way she was looking at him . . .”
“Her being . . . ?”
“Mueller.”
“Ah. And she was looking at . . .”
“Si Cwan.”
“Ah.”
Robin pulled a pillow over her head and screamed into it in frustration. When she yanked it off her head and looked back to the screen, her mother was watching with one curious eyebrow arched. “Are you done?”
Lefler considered the question a long moment. Then she pulled the pillow over her face once more, let out one more scream, and removed it. “I am now.”
“So let’s see if I understand this,” said Morgan. “You had a lovely dinner catching up on old times with Captain Shelby.”
“Right.”
“And Commander Mueller appeared, as near as you could tell, to be chatting up Si Cwan.”
“Also right.”
“And he seemed to find her attractive, and as near as you could tell, it was reciprocal.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Mother,” she said, sitting up and swinging her feet over the edge of the bed so that they were dangling just short of the floor. She pulled her uniform jacket over her head, not even bothering to unfasten the front, and tossed it in a heap on the floor. “Maybe I was reading into it. Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe,” and she pulled fistfuls of her hair in opposite directions, “I’m just losing my mind.”
“Robin, I’m just a bit confused about something,” said Morgan, raising a finger in the air as if she were testing wind direction. “I thought . . . and correct me if I’m wrong on this . . . that you had lost interest in Si Cwan.”
She nodded.
“Because,” Morgan continued, “you’d been appalled by the merciless brutality you saw him display during the business on Risa. As I recall, you considered his actions to be so repellent that you wanted nothing more to do with him. For that matter, you had trouble believing that you were ever attracted to him in the first place. Is any of this ringing a bell?”
“Yes, Mother, it’s all ringing a bell. I haven’t forgotten any of that.”
“Oh, good. And if all that is the case, then it prompts the question . . .”
“Why do I give a damn whether Mueller is interested in him, and him in her?”
“Exactly, yes.”
Lefler drew her legs up so that her knees were under her chin. “I’ve given that very question a great deal of consideration.”
“And the answer you’ve come up with is . . . ?”
“Not a clue.”
“Ah.”
“Mother,” Lefler said in annoyance, “if you say ‘ah’ one more time, I’m going to slap you silly with a tongue depressor.”
“From light-years away? I’d like to see that,” said her mother with a smile so infectious that Robin couldn’t help but smile in response. “See, there’s my girl. There’s my Robin’s happy face.”
“Your Robin isn’t feeling all that happy.”
“Because you feel conflicted about Si Cwan.”
“Yes, exactly.” She felt her voice was very thick, as if she were speaking through a heavy fog. “I was so certain that I’d put all those feelings I’d had for him to rest, back on Risa. I’d been so certain that he wasn’t the man for me. That we were too different, too far apart philosophically, to ever have a chance together . . . but when I’m with him, he has a charisma that just . . .”
“Robin . . .”
“Yes, Mother?”
Morgan smiled at her indulgently. “You know I love you.”
“Yeah, Mom, I know.”
“So I can say this to you . . .”
“Yeah, Mom?”
Taking a deep breath, Morgan told her, “Shut the hell up.”
Robin sat in her bed, staring at the screen. The fact that her feet were not touching the ground made her feel like a small child. The fact that her mother had spoken to her in that manner completed the sensation. All she could think to say in response to that was “Ah.”
“Robin,” sighed Morgan, shaking her head, looking discouraged. “Honey, I don’t think you realize it, but ever since we reunited, you and I, you’ve been going on and on and round and round in regards to Si Cwan. It’s getting old, darling. Actually, it got old a while ago. At this point it’s reached the point of being superannuated.”