by Peter David
The card game had caught the attention by this point of all the rather seedy denizens of the equally seedy bar. Mojov Station was a way station convenient to several frontiers, a place where various types who might otherwise be questioned in more “civilized” establishments on more “civilized” worlds could come to relax, meet, greet, and try to parlay a few extra credits for themselves whenever possible.
Krassus looked at the bet, and felt the blood drain slightly from his face. “I can’t cover that,” he blustered.
“Seems to me like you’re in trouble, then,” replied the Xenexian.
Krassus’ eyes flickered from his hand (which was a very solid one) to the bet on the table, and his greed was becoming overwhelming . . . to say nothing of his pride over the thought of losing to this pasty-faced Xenexian. Then his eyes caught Zina and he looked back at the Xenexian. “How about her?”
Zina was shocked to hear herself being put up as a bet, but the Xenexian didn’t seem the least bit surprised. It was as if he was expecting it. “She worth two bars of latinum? I don’t think so.”
“What she can provide in straight-up resale would be far less. What Zina can provide in the way of . . . physical gratification . . . she’s worth ten times that. I speak from personal experience.” Krassus chortled.
“Krassus!” she snarled.
The Xenexian regarded her thoughtfully, “If I won you, Zina . . . would you try to kill me as payback? Or would you show gratitude for one who would treat you far better than a man who’d put you up for a stake in a game of Six-Card Warhoon?”
Zina appeared to consider the point. Then a look of contempt crossed her face as she said to the Xenexian, “Clearly I have no more reason to be loyal to Krassus than he has to be loyal to me. Do what you will, Xenexian . . . and if it falls your way, I’ll do what you will, as well.”
“Fair enough,” said the Xenexian. “It’s a bet, Orion.”
“Excellent!” crowed Krassus. “We finally have a game for true men, Xenexian! And now let us see which of us is the better!”
• • •
The back rooms in the bar were available for rent for just this sort of occasion, as the Xenexian strode into the room, pivoting quickly on his heel to make sure that the Orion girl wasn’t behind his back. Zina stood framed into the door, grinning ferally, her eyes sparkling. The room wasn’t elaborately furnished; then again, the sturdy bed in the corner wasn’t really much more than the room really required.
“I guess Krassus learned who was the better,” she purred. “The great fool.”
“More fool he,” agreed the Xenexian.
“And what shall I call you?” She slinked across the floor, her hips swaying, the scraps of cloth that served as her clothing barely clinging to her.
“Mac,” he said.
“And will you sell me, Mac? You own me now. Will you sell me, or keep me?”
“I thought I’d reserve judgment on that,” said Mac.
“Until when?”
“An hour or two from now.”
She sprang toward him, and his first reflex was to try and shove her away. But she wrapped herself around him in a rather unthreatening manner, her arms behind his back, her legs straddling his hips. “Merely an hour?” she said challengingly with a raised brow. “I think we can make up your mind faster than that.”
And then her lips were against his, hungrily, and it seemed as if she weren’t a woman so much as she was a force of nature. She practically stole Mac’s breath away as she pulled at his clothing, trying to yank his loose shirt off him. He staggered back toward the bed, hit the mattress, and fell back onto it. She literally ripped off his shirt and started to do things down his bare chest.
He pulled her up to face him, looked into her eyes, and felt as if he were being sucked into a maelstrom. Her lips were drawn back, her teeth glittering and white, and he rolled her over so that he was atop her. Somewhere in all of that her clothes fell away, his chest pressed against her, and the heat was overwhelming. Her hands reached below his waist as his own arms extended up toward the pillow that lay at the far end of the bed.
The door to the room opened in complete silence. The Xenexian named Mac did not see Krassus enter, moving with stealth that seemed unnatural in one so large. Zina spotted him, though, but she said nothing . . . merely hissed more loudly to cover his entrance. Krassus carried a large knife, which glittered in the dim lighting of the room. He kept it highly polished, incredibly sharp. Keeping it clean was something of a challenge considering the number of times that he had shed blood with it.
He took two quick, silent steps and was across the room, the knife brought up over his head as he prepared to bring it slamming down. The Xenexian was oblivious, his back glistening with sweat, his right hand under the pillow. . . .
And suddenly there was a shriek of energy which tore through the pillow, blasting it apart, slicing through the air, slicing through Krassus. The energy bolt hit him dead square in the stomach, knocking him off his feet. He dropped the knife and, at that same instant, Mac suddenly arched his back and shoved Zina out from under him. She hit the floor, stunned and confused, as Mac snagged the falling knife from midair with his left hand. In his right hand he was holding the blaster he’d stashed under the pillow.
All of this happened before Krassus had even had time to hit the floor. The momentum of the energy bolt had slammed him back against the door, and he now slid to the floor with obvious confusion in his eyes.
Mac eased himself off the bed. From the floor, Zina looked at the fallen Krassus in shock and then back at the Xenexian. “You . . . you shot him . . . and you . . . you didn’t even see him . . .”
“Practice,” Mac said evenly. His voice, his demeanor, seemed to have changed. He seemed more in command, more formidable than before. If Zina were a fanciful type, she would have imagined that thunderclouds were massing over his head.
He walked slowly over toward Krassus, who was lying on the floor, clutching his belly. Blood was fountaining out, and Krassus was clutching things that he didn’t even want to think about touching, trying to shove them back into his body. Mac crouched down, and his eyes were dead and cold. “Gut shot,” he said, almost as if commiserating. “Takes a while to die of those. Painful as hell. And the damage is too extreme for any nearby med facility. You’re dead. Of course”—he twirled the knife in his hand with surprising expertise; it seemed to come alive in his long fingers—“if you wish, I can end it for you faster.”
“You . . . you bastard . . .” stammered out Krassus.
Mac nodded slowly. “Yes. I imagine so. But even bastards have friends. I’ve had a few, including one who saved my life once. His name was Barsamis. Name seem familiar?” At first Krassus shook his head, and then his eyes went wide in realization. “Ah. You remember him. Good,” said Mac. “Barsamis had his faults, certainly. Something of a lowlife, really. But, as I said, he saved my life on one occasion, and that made me beholden to him. I owed him, and then some Orion slave trader violated an agreement and wound up killing him. Shoved a knife between his ribs.” He looked speculatively at the blade in his hand. “This one, perhaps? Was this the knife?”
Wordlessly, Krassus nodded.
“Well, then,” said Mac. “I’d say this falls into the realm of poetic justice, wouldn’t you?”
And suddenly the warning tingled in the base of Mac’s skull.
There was nothing psychic about the knack he had, nor anything mystical. The Xenexian simply had a knack for knowing when danger was imminent, and was able to react with speed and aim that seemed—to anyone else—supernatural. In the case of Krassus, of course, it had been easy. He’d been expecting just such a tactic as Krassus had pulled, and was prepared for it.
The attack of the Orion girl, Zina, on the other hand, was a bit more ill timed.
Zina leaped at him, and Mac—still from a crouched position—slammed out with his right foot. It caught Zina squarely in the gut while she was still in midair and sent her
falling to the floor. It did not, however, slow her down significantly. With an animal roar she was upon him, her fingers outstretched, her nails bared.
And out of the corner of his eye, Mac saw Krassus starting to reach into the folds of his shirt. It was possible that Krassus was simply trying to stop the bleeding. On the other hand, it was also possible that he was about to pull a weapon.
Mac took no chance. He yanked the blaster from his belt and swung it around with his left hand, the barrel hitting the Orion girl full in the face. He heard a crack which told him that he’d likely broken her lower jaw as she went down, screeching. His right hand, meantime, swept in an arc, slicing through Krassus’s throat, severing his vocal cords, cutting through major arteries. Dark blood poured out from Krassus’s throat and he slumped back, his eyes rolling up into the top of his head.
Mac scrambled to his feet as Zina backed against the far wall. There was the look of the wild, wounded animal in her face. Her damaged jaw fed pain into her that fueled her rage, and Mac brought the blaster up and even with her. “This has one setting, and it’s a fatal one,” Mac warned her. “I don’t want to have to kill you . . . but I will.”
Zina, with a bestial roar, leaped at him.
And a split second before he could squeeze the trigger, he sensed someone else behind him, but he couldn’t fire in two directions at the same time. And then there was a blast from behind him, accompanied by the familiar whine of a phaser. The stun blast struck Zina and flipped her backward over the bed. She hit the floor and lay there, unmoving.
Mac spun, his blaster still leveled since he had no idea what to expect. But even if he had known . . . he would still have been surprised.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
Jean-Luc Picard stood in the doorway, his phaser in his hand. He was dressed in civilian clothes of dark black. He was looking down at the bloody corpse of Krassus, and then slowly he shifted his gaze to Mac. “What the hell happened in here? Tell me it was self-defense.”
“It was self-defense.”
“Would you lie if it were otherwise?”
Calhoun’s eyes flashed. “To others, yes. To you, no.” He paused. “Did you come in a ship?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s get in it and I’ll tell you.” He started for the door, then paused and said, “Leave first. I’ll follow a minute or so later. I don’t want to be seen with you.”
“Why not?”
“You know what you look like, Picard?”
Despite the goriness of the situation, the violence that had infested the room mere moments before, Picard couldn’t help but smile inwardly. Reverence was never one of Mackenzie Calhoun’s strong suits. “What do I look like, Calhoun?”
“You look like a Starfleet officer dressed in civilian clothes. If I’m spotted with you, I’ll be ruining my reputation.”
• • •
As the runabout hurtled away from Mojov Station, Picard turned from the controls to study Calhoun’s face. He felt as if he were trying to find, somewhere within, the young man he had met twenty years ago. Calhoun, for his part, was calmly wiping away the last traces of Krassus’ blood from his hands.
“You had to kill him, didn’t you,” Picard asked after a time.
Calhoun looked up. “Yes. It was self-defense.”
“That’s how you arranged it. You allowed yourself to be pulled into a situation where you knew that you would be attacked . . . and then could defend yourself with lethal force.”
Calhoun put down the towel he was using to dry himself. “He killed a man to whom I owed my life,” he said. “Honor demanded that the score be evened. But I’m not an assassin. I couldn’t just walk in and kill him.”
“You’re splitting hairs, M’k’n’zy.”
“At least, unlike you, I still have hairs to split,” replied Calhoun with a lopsided grin. He sat back. “Gods . . . ’M’k’n’zy.’ It’s been ages since I went by that. Hurt my ears to listen to people muck up the gutturals. Closest Terran tongues came was ’Mackenzie.’ “
“Yes, I know. You officially changed your name on your records. M’k’n’zy of Calhoun became Mackenzie Calhoun.”
“’ ’Mac,’ to my friends.” He eyed Picard with open curiosity. “Do you fall into that category, Picard?”
“I would like to think so.” He paused. “You’re trying to drag me off topic, which is something in which you’ve often excelled. The point is . . . if you have a grievance, you could have . . .”
“Could have what? Arrested him? Tried to bring him in for Federation justice? Picard,” and he leaned forward, staring out into space, “it’s different when you’re out there. When you’re on your own. When you don’t have the power of the Federation at your beck and call. I work best outside the system, Picard . . . and since you’ve made a surprise visit, I take it you’re aware of just how outside the system I am.”
“And did it bring you personal satisfaction? Killing that Orion?”
He blew air impatiently between his lips, “Yes. Is that what you want to hear, Picard? Yes, it did.” He sat there for a moment and then turned to gaze steadily at Picard. And in that dark stare, Picard saw a hint, just a hint, of a soul that had terrified armed men twenty years ago. Saw the fires that burned within Calhoun. “Don’t you get it, Picard? I’m a savage. I always have been. I’ve created this . . . this cloak of civilization that I wrap around myself as need be. But I’ve kept this to remind me.” He ran a finger down the scar on his face. “As much as I’ve tried to leave behind my roots, I’ve still felt it necessary to keep this with me so I never forget,”
“Calhoun . . . Mac . . .”
“Do you know why I did it, Picard?”
“You told me. You killed him because—”
“Not that.” He waved dismissively as if the Orion were unimportant. “Why I followed your suggestions. Why, when you eventually told me you thought I was destined for greatness. I—in my naiveté—believed you.”
“You’ve never gone into specifics. I thought—”
“I had a vision of you, Picard. As absurd as it sounds . . . before we met. I had a vision of you. I believed that you would be important in my life.”
“A vision? You mean a dream?”
“I mean I saw you as clearly, as plainly, as I see you here and now. I saw you and . . .” His voice trailed off.
“And—?”
“And . . . someone else. Someone with whom I was . . . involved. We kept our affair rather discreet.”
“It did not end well, I take it.”
“Nothing ends well, Picard. Happy endings are an invention of fantasists and fools.”
“Oh, stop it!” Picard said so sharply that it caught Calhoun’s attention. “Self-pity does not become you. It doesn’t become anyone in Starfleet.”
Calhoun got up and strode toward the back of the runabout. Setting the computer on autoguide, Picard followed him. Calhoun turned and leaned against the back wall, facing Picard.
“You should never have resigned, Mac. That’s the simple fact of the matter. I know you blamed yourself for what happened on your previous assignment, the Grissom.”
“Don’t bring it up.”
“But Starfleet cleared you. . . .”
“I said don’t bring it up!” said Calhoun furiously. The scar seemed to stand out against his face and, bubbling with anger, he shoved Picard out of the way as he started to head back to the helm of the runabout.
And to Calhoun’s astonishment, Picard grabbed Calhoun by the wrist and swung him back around. Calhoun banged into the wall and, as much as from surprise as anything else, slid to the ground. He looked up at Picard in astonishment. “Trying your hand at savagery yourself, Picard?” he asked.
Picard stabbed a finger at him. “Dammit, Calhoun, I believed in you! I looked into your eyes twenty years ago and I saw greatness! Greatness that did not deserve to be confined on Xenex.”
“You should have left me the hell alone. Just as you should now.�
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“That is not an option. You’re a Starfleet officer. No matter what you are now . . . that is what you will always be. You cannot turn away from that. You have a destiny. Don’t you dare let it slide away. Now get up. Get up, if you’re a man.”
There was something about the words . . . something that stirred in Calhoun’s memory. He automatically relegated what Picard was saying now—something about the Thallonians—to some dim and less important portion of his mind as he tried to dredge up the phrasing.
“ . . . and it is my belief that no one could be more suited—” Picard was saying.
“Jean-Luc, please, just . . . give me a moment,” and the sincerity in Calhoun’s tone stopped Picard cold. Calhoun pulled himself to standing and he was eye-to-eye with Picard. He was lost in thought, and Picard—sensing something was up—said nothing. Then Calhoun snapped his fingers. “Of course. You said that to me then. Gods, I haven’t thought about it in years. . . .”
“I said what?”
“About my being a Starfleet officer. About destiny.”
Suddenly looking much older, Calhoun walked across the runabout and dropped back into the helm chair. “That’s the problem, Picard. That’s always been the problem. I could see the future so clearly, even when I was a young man. I saw my people free, and it was so clear, so pure a vision, that I couldn’t help but believe that I was destined to bring them to that freedom. And then I saw you . , . don’t ask me how. And again I felt destiny tapping me on the shoulder, pointing me, guiding me. I guess . . . I had it easy.”
“Easy?” Picard looked stunned. “You had an upbringing more brutal than anyone who wasn’t raised a Klingon. Easy, you say?”
“Yes, easy. Because I never doubted myself, Picard. Not ever. I never doubted that I was destined for something. And I . . .” he smiled grimly. “I never lost. Oh, I had setbacks. I had obstacles thrown in my way. But in the end, I always triumphed. Moreover, I knew I would. And when I worked my way up to first officer on the Grissom . . .” He shocked his head. “Dammit, Jean-Luc, no one guides a planet to freedom unless he feels that he was born to win. That feeling never left me.”