Star Trek - NF - 11 - Restoration

  She kept telling herself that this was a positive thing, this dy-namic between the crew and her. That it kept her "honest." Be-cause (she reasoned) let's face it: The time that she had spent with

  Calhoun might indeed have had much more of a negative impact on her than she would have possibly wanted to admit.

  It might be (again she hated to admit it) that there was something to be said for the attitude of Garbeck and the others. And the fact was mat Garbeck's approach to Jellico was really the more correct one. Shelby had allowed her reactions to be colored by the fact that she had a personal history with Calhoun, and had felt that relationship was being exploited by Jellico for the purpose of monitoring Cal-houn, rather than her rightfully earning her place on the Excalibur by dint of accomplishment Alexandra Garbeck, however, was under no such constraints, carried with her no such baggage. She was sim-ply doing her duty as she saw fit. Once the hurt and anger had faded, Shelby could see that more clearly-and even wondered whether, given the same circumstances and minus the aspect of the personal relationship-she would wind up doing the exact same thing.

  But still...

  In her heart, she knew that what she had done in order to help the Makkusians was correct. She knew that Calhoun would have been the first to pat her on the back and say, "Nice job, Eppy." More than that, though... the old crew would have been nodding in approval. There would have been Lefler, grinning at Shelby's cleverness, and Soleta and Burgoyne would have teamed up to get the job done without signing off on a subsequent report chastising her, and Kebron-well, he wouldn't have said anything, really, he'd have just stood there, but even so-

  And McHenry, why, he'd probably be dozing, but, at the same time, ready to come to full wakefulness at the slightest hint of trou-ble, in that way he had which bordered on the paranormal. At first it had driven her completely crazy, but now she had become accus-tomed to watching MacGibbon-one half of McMac-seated at conn, always alert, ever vigilant. It should have been comforting, reassuring. Instead it was... well, a little boring, really.

  The crew of the Excalibur had driven her nuts. The day shift, and the night shift as well. They had shared their commanding of-ficer's knack for eccentricity, and because of that, had gotten on

  Shelby's nerves. At least, she'd thought they had. Now, though... dammit... she missed them.

  She could practically hear Calhoun's voice in her head, saying, Typical woman... never knowing what you want and don't want. Taking umbrage, irrationally, at the comment she had manufac-tured for herself, she started to argue with the simulacrum of Cal-houn that resided inside her head. She cut it short, though. She had enough problems.

  The business on Makkus remained a major sore spot, and noth-ing would have suited Shelby better than to have it end in a posi-tive manner. Her gut feeling was that Hauman was going to see the light and realize that he could have it all. That he and his peo-ple could be part of the Federation while, at the same time, main-taining the integrity of their personal philosophies. Why not? After all, if the Klingons could belong to the UFP and still be the aggressive, warlike race they'd always been, why would the Makkusians be poorly served in a similar alliance, simply because they believed in neutrality?

  When they had made their initial approach to Makkus, how-ever, and Shelby had desired to speak to him, he had seemed tense and distracted. As opposed to the first time she had encountered him, when he had posed what came across as a pleasant invitation, this time he practically ordered her to come down. It made her un-easy. It also made Garbeck uneasy. As a result, she volunteered to head planetside in lieu of Shelby in the event that there was trou-ble. Shelby, however, would not hear of it. "I'm the one who dealt with him before," she said, "and I'm going to see this through."

  Garbeck nodded without protest, which was something of a re-lief to Shelby. However, the first officer insisted on increasing the security guards. So, when Shelby went down, with her was not only security head Kahn, but assistant chief Wagner and a third security officer named Allison Lee-a strapping young woman who looked like she could probably break both Wagner and Kahn in half without even trying.

  Hauman's gaze flickered over the trio of guards, and there was

  grim amusement in his eyes. "More protection than before, Cap-tain. Do you believe that we pose a threat?"

  "Simply being cautious, Hauman. We live in hazardous times. Unfortunately, when we don't have official bonds of alliance, it's difficult to know whom we can trust."

  "Sometimes, Captain, even such bonds do not provide us with that basis of trust. Sometimes... those we trust... can turn out to be our greatest betrayers."

  Shelby did not like the sound of where this was going. Neither, obviously, did the security guards. She noticed that Wagner's hand was subtly poised over his bolstered phaser. The women were not being quite that overt, but they looked ready for trouble just the same.

  "Are you saying... that you feel we have betrayed you in some way?" Shelby asked cautiously, aware that the answer to that question might demand a quick, self-defensive reaction.

  But Hauman simply frowned at them for a moment, clearly not understanding what she was referring to. Then his face cleared. "Ah. No wonder you have adopted this... this defensive posture," he said, indicating Shelby and those accompanying her. "You thought that my people had an issue with you. No... no, my friends," and he seemed almost relieved to clear it up. "No, you have done noth-ing to earn anything except our eternal gratitude for your aid."

  *Then... what are you referring to, if I may ask?"

  Hauman took a deep breath, as if readying himself to make a personally devastating confession. "Corinder," he said.

  "Corinder." For a moment the name meant nothing to Shelby, but then it came back to her. "The next planet over in the system. Your neighbors."

  "Yes. Corinder. But they have not been..; 'neighborly.' "

  "Fm not quite following you," she admitted.

  He laughed bitterly. "I cannot say I blame you for not 'follow-ing.' I can scarcely believe it myself. After all this time..."

  "All -what time?" She exchanged looks with her guards, who were obviously as befuddled as she. "Hauman..."

  But his anger was already swelling, as if the mere act of dis-cussing it was enough to drive him to bubbling fury. "They under-estimated us. They thought our scientists would not be able to figure it out. That we would not learn of their betrayal. You, who are relative strangers to us, saved us from a pernicious threat in-troduced by those whom we considered longtime allies."

  "I'm still not-" Then she stopped, realizing, her eyes wide. "Wait... are you saying that the Corinderians were somehow re-sponsible for-"

  He nodded in affirmation. "The disease carried by the insects, yes. We discovered signs of actual genetic tampering in the specimens we managed to capture. Tampering that infected the insects with a disease that had ravaged Corinder more than two centuries ago. In the spirit of sharing, they decided to give the disease-in a more heavily mutated form-to us, with the insects acting as carriers."

  "Are you certain?"

  "Yes. And I have to tell you, Captain... we are incensed."

  He was not simply spouting off. He was fairly trembling with barely suppressed rage. Shelby couldn't quite believe it. This was the man who had been the epitome of peace earlier, the advocate of neutrality. "Hauman," she said firmly, "I can tell you right now that choosing a course of action when you are this angry is never a good thing to do. You have to think rationally before you-"

  But he wasn't even listening to her. Instead, he had started pac-ing again. His fists kept clenching and unclenching, as if he was envisioning what it would be like to have the collective throats of the Corinderians between his fingers. "We had thought that they were like-minded," he was saying, and it seemed as if he was speaking more to himself than to her. "We had thought that we shared philosophies, beliefs, a respect for a system of thought that guaranteed peaceful coexistence for all. Such, however, is clearly not the case. They tried
to annihilate us, through dark and perni-cious means. And you knew!"

  "We did not know!" Shelby said immediately.

  Again he shook his head. "My apologies. My anger makes me

  choose my words poorly. I did not mean that you knew of their duplicity. I meant that you knew there were these types of people out there. People plotting our downfall, people who did not care in the least for promises or allegiances or commonality. People who want only what they want, when they want it, and do not care in the least whom they hurt or destroy or kill. That is the type of... of creature that inhabits Corinder."

  "But why? Why would they do such a thing?"

  "We can only surmise at this point, but we think we have a fairly reasonable idea. Corinder, you see, is massively over-crowded. You have not been there, have you?" When she shook her head, he smiled grimly. "You would be well-advised not to bother. You can barely turn around there, people are so packed in. Housing shortages, food shortages. They have no self-control, the Corinderians. They multiply like... what are those creatures? Small, furry..."

  "Rabbits?"

  'Tribbles," he corrected himself. "We have endeavored to pro-vide what you would call humanitarian aid. We have offered of our services what we can, but the people of Corinder have always been most prideful. They claimed they neither wanted nor needed our help, although they always did so in a polite manner." He laughed ruefully. "Obviously, they have chosen to be polite no longer. They have chosen instead to try and eliminate us. By wip-ing out our population, they would then be able to take up resi-dence on this world. That was what provided the beginnings of our suspicions about the insects, you see. We are very similar in biological makeup to the Corinderians, and yet our scientists dis-covered that the disease the insects were carrying would not have the slightest impact on Corinderian DNA. That made our scien-tists think that perhaps the illness was more manufactured than it was a natural outgrowth. One thing led to another in their find-ings, and ultimately we tracked the problem back to its source: those bastards on Corinder. Well," and he smiled in a way that was not reflected in any other part of his face, "if overpopulation is

  what the Corinderians are concerned about, then we will be more than happy to help them solve that problem."

  "You... can't mean what I think you mean..."

  "What else is there for it?" he demanded. "They tried to obliter-ate us. They came at us with a sword. What would you have us do?"

  "Beat it into a plowshare, as you did with all your other weapons."

  "Not all," he said darkly.

  She did not like the sound of that. "You're saying... you're ready to go to war over this."

  "Of course we are," he said matter-of-factiy. "What other choice do we have? What other avenue is there for us to pursue? None. None at all. If they are inclined to try and destroy us, we have no choice but to do the same to them before they are able to do it to us."

  "That's not true," spoke up Allison Lee, and then she immedi-ately looked down. "I'm sorry. I spoke out of turn."

  "No, it's all right, Lee. Say what's on your mind."

  She looked up, encouraged by her captain's words. "Hauman, sir," she said, "my family goes way back in military history... all the way back to Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, one of the founders of my native country. And I can tell you that the alternative to war is always peace, and that peace is, more often than not, made. The only question is whether that peace comes before or after people spend years killing each other. But if more people respected and practiced the art of compromise before wars started rather than after, billions of lives lost throughout the centuries could have been spared."

  "An excellent philosophy, Miss," said Hauman grimly. "We had an excellent philosophy, too. One that spoke of peace and neutral-ity. But we have learned that such philosophies pale in compari-son to people who have the will and the dedication to annihilate their neighbors without cause, without pity, without mercy. That is the mentality that we are dealing with here. And we have you to thank, Captain," and he turned to Shelby, "for showing us the way."

  "Me?" she said in surprise.

  He nodded. "You have made us realize that one has to be will-ing to look beyond immediate philosophies. You have made us re-alize that we must consider... the big picture." She winced when he said that, but he continued. "I think it very likely that we will wind up joining your Federation, for the truth of just how danger-ous a galaxy we live in has been underscored for us. But first... first we will dispatch our enemies."

  "Hauman..."

  "Please... Captain..." and he looked at her with an air of in-finite tragedy. "Do not make this... any more difficult for us than it already is. Wish us well... and pray for us, to whatever gods you worship, that we shall come through this waking nightmare. For we must kill our neighbors now... and there are a great deal of preparations to be made for doing so."

  Hauman stood alone for some time after that, the sound of the Exeter's transporters still ringing in his ears. He felt the weight of the eyes of his ancestors still upon him.

  "The big picture," he said again, with a certain degree of rever-ence. It was his new philosophy.

  He missed the old one sorely. But every child, he reasoned, has to come of age sooner or later.

  CALHOUN

  he liked the mother. And the boy. Except he couldn't shake him-self from thinking of them as "the mother" and "the boy," rather than by their names. He also knew precisely why he was having that difficulty; the reason he knew why was because Mackenzie Calhoun was forever cursed with the annoying ability to always know his own mind under any circumstance. Even when he had gone to Rheela after the fact and told her he'd been "thinking about" what she'd said, he really knew what his thought process had been. In fact, there had never been a time when he didn't know precisely why he did what he did. All the reasons, good or bad, moral or immoral. Every decision he made was pure and clear and made perfect sense.

  At least, that was what he liked to tell himself. There were cer-tainly others who would have debated that notion, but they weren't around.

  Weren't around.

  The days were turning into weeks on Yakaba, and Mackenzie Calhoun was slowly coming to the realization that his constant re-frain of "passing through" might be serving as a nice, comforting personal mantra with very little relation to the reality of his situa-tion. The truth was that he had absolutely no clue how long he was going to be marooned. That was really the word that summed up

  his present situation: He was marooned. For all the ability that he had to get off the damned planet, he might as well have landed on a desert island, with his only company being a couple of rocks and a palm tree.

  Still...

  ... it wasn't so bad here. Really wasn't so bad.

  In some ways, the frontier aspect of Yakaba reminded him more of his native Xenex than any place he had ever been. There was a distinct lack of sophistication among the populace, and there was something to be said for that. In some ways, Calhoun occasionally felt as if having too much knowledge was disastrous in the long term. This fairly simple life that had been presented him might wind up being a very unexpected gift.

  The people of Narrin took to him as quickly and as easily as he in turn took to the job of Majister. Calhoun found the job had a certain amount of charm to it. The townspeople treated him with deference, bobbing their heads politely or, in other ways, making it clear that they had nothing but respect for his authority. It was both like and unlike being the captain of a starship-like, in that he was considered a central authority, unlike, in that these people weren't officially under his command.

  Kusack, for his part, was not a happy individual. His leg had healed, and the door and lock had been repaired so that he was un-able to go anywhere. He continued to make loud and threatening noises about what his brothers were going to do when they mus-tered the nerve to come back and face Calhoun once more. This didn't worry Calhoun himself especially, but he was concerned about others who might run into trouble
as a result of the brothers' ire. Calhoun, after all, was not at the gaol all the time. The perpet-ually cranky Ronk was his main substitute when Calhoun was off duty. As near as Calhoun could determine, Ronk had taken on the job primarily so that he would have something to complain about. He complained when he arrived for his shift, he complained when he switched back off with Calhoun. But when Calhoun asked him why he was offering his services if he found it so personally in-

  convenient, Ronk would just give Calhoun a pitying look, as if he were the dumbest thing ever to set foot on Yakaba, and then go about his business.