Fire On High

  She remembered the day she had gotten it. It had been the day before her mother had died.

  She recalled how the irony had weighed heavily upon her. How her mother had had the hologram produced as purely a spur of the moment thing. A gift to send off to her beloved daughter, a keepsake with no particular meaning other than that her mom was thinking about her. No … no, there had been another meaning, Lefler now recalled. She and her mom had had a big fight the night before. Her mother had made it clear that she had matters to attend to and that she absolutely had to go off and visit relatives the next day, and so she had left her daughter—for the last time, as it turned out—with things still unsettled between them. Robin racked her brains, trying to remember what it was that she and her mother had argued about, and she couldn't for the life of her recall.

  All she could remember was the guilt that she had carried with her when she'd gotten that hologram the day after her mother had died.

  Not died.

  Abandoned her.

  With a strangled roar of humiliation, anger, and frustration, Lefler's arm drew back and she hurled the holotube with all her strength, It flew across the room and, in her mind's eye, shattered, the tiny pieces of the delicate technology littering her floor like so many precious snowflakes.

  Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon how one looked at it, the holotube was made to last. All it did was ricochet off the wall and land on the floor with a gentle clatter. It rolled a few feet and then came to a stop.

  She looked at the holotube lying there on the floor, and felt it was looking at her mockingly. Feeling anger building inside her, she moved quickly toward it and stomped down on it. But the tube shot out from under her foot, rolled up against the wall, and lay there.

  Robin let out a sigh, her initial rage spent. She walked over to the holotube, picked it up and looked at it while slowly shaking her head. "You always did have a knack for bouncing back, Mom," she said ruefully before putting the tube carefully back into the drawer from which she'd removed it.

  * * *

  Shelby was convinced that everyone was looking at her.

  Stop it! You're being paranoid! she scolded herself as she made her way down the corridors of the Excalibur, but she simply couldn't help herself. Looks or nods of the head that previously would have greeted her without her thinking anything of it now seemed fraught with hidden meaning. She was convinced that the entire crew was laughing at her behind her back.

  Colors?

  What had she been thinking? What in God's name had been going through her mind?

  Try as she might, she couldn't dredge up the slightest reason why such a complete non sequitur would have popped out of her mouth. Sure, she had been a bit punchy. When they'd carted her back to sickbay, the doctors there couldn't believe that she'd been up and around at all. Even so …

  Colors?

  What could possibly have possessed her?

  This was ridiculous, Shelby realized, as she headed for a turbolift. She couldn't figure out why she was being this way.

  All right, that wasn't true. She did have some inklings. It had to do with the fact that, to some degree, she had felt like, and continued to feel like, an outsider on her own ship. Her style was very different from Mackenzie Calhoun's, and although they were supposed to be working in tandem, she still couldn't help but feel a streak of competitiveness with him. That was the truth of it, really. In many ways—in all ways—Shelby felt as if she were not only extremely qualified for command, but more qualified than Calhoun. Yet she was playing support to him, and not only that, but it seemed to her as if the crew liked him more than her.

  It's not about being liked, she scolded herself. That wasn't it at all. It was about getting the job done. It was about acting in the best interests of Starfleet. It was about routine, and regulations, and procedures, and getting back in one piece. Calhoun, damn him, could afford to be flamboyant, daring, and heroic. He had Shelby to clean up the mess for him: Shelby to run interference with Starfleet, Shelby to remind him of the way things should be done as he thoughtlessly flaunted the rules. Calhoun was busy carving himself a status that could only be considered legendary, and here was Shelby, feeling like a grunt.

  Besides that, she felt extremely vulnerable in that status. And matters hadn't been helped by recent developments.

  But, dammit, she had sustained injury. That was the thing to remember. That's what she should be thinking about.

  The turbolift opened and she stepped onto it. "Bridge," she said briskly.

  The lift hurtled toward the bridge, and as it did so, she continued to ponder the situation. She knew the reputation she was developing around the ship. Grim, humorless, a total hard-case.

  The turbolift slowed and the doors slid open. Robin Lefler was standing there, her hands draped behind her back, looking lost in thought. She glanced up and looked mildly surprised to see Shelby there. "Oh! Commander! Feeling better?"

  "Just heading up to the bridge." She gestured for Lefler to join her and the lieutenant quickly did so. As the doors slid shut and the lift continued its way upward, Shelby suddenly inquired, "Lieutenant…you hear people talk. You get around. You know what people around here have on their minds."

  "I… guess I do, yes," allowed Lefler. "I am in charge of Ops, so I tend to—"

  "To the best of your knowledge, does the crew lampoon me? Behind my back? Do they value my contributions and qualifications?"

  The questions seemed to catch Lefler completely off guard. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Am I…" She tried to find the best way to express it, but nothing seemed to come to mind immediately. Finally, for want of a better phrase, she said, "Am I… 'one of the guys'?"

  Lefler stared at her as if she'd grown a third eye. "Would you want to be?"

  "I…" She'd been looking at Lefler, but now she stared at the door. "I don't know. I don't know that fraternizing with the officers is a particularly good idea."

  "But is being so rigid all the time a good idea either?"

  Now she looked back at Lefler and there was a slightly pained smile on her face. "Is that what they say I am?"

  The door to the bridge hissed open and Shelby strode out, brimming with new confidence. Lefler walked quickly past her and headed over to her station at Ops. Mark McHenry, at the conn, was sitting and staring dreamily at the world of Zondar turning lazily below them. He looked as if his thoughts were a million miles away, but by this point Lefler—and everyone else on the bridge—was used to him, knowing that his apparent distractedness was just that: apparent.

  Calhoun was seated in the command chair, going over a report, and he glanced up when Shelby entered. It was as if he were expecting her. But she was in no hurry to walk down to his level, feeling perfectly content instead to stand on the upper deck of the bridge and look down. She found that it gave her a nice dominant feeling, like a queen on high regarding her realm. Zak Kebron, standing at the tactical station, didn't even glance her way.

  The captain raised a questioning eyebrow. "It's good to see you, Commander. Planning to come down here and join us?"

  "Of course, sir. It's good to be back."

  She slowly walked down the ramp, and as she did so she looked over the bridge personnel. She tried to see if any of them were grinning her way, or whispering among themselves, or in any other way behaving in a disrespectful or discourteous manner that would not only have been not in keeping with Starfleet decorum, but would have been inappropriate in keeping with the respect that she was due.

  Calhoun caught her eye and made a subtle "come here" gesture. She drew close to him and he said in a low voice, "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine, sir. Why?"

  "You seem… stiff."

  "I'm displaying posture and poise that is suitable for a Starfleet officer," she replied.

  Calhoun had been slouching slightly in his chair, and she felt a bit of smug satisfaction as he reflexively drew himself up. Nodding slightly as if having achieved a major pe
rsonal triumph, she moved around the edge of her chair and took her place in it.

  "Our current situation," Calhoun informed her, "just to keep you apprised, is that we are continuing to orbit Zondar pending Science Officer Soleta's return. We will then be setting course for the planet Momidium to pick up an individual being held there under… unusual circumstances."

  Lefler overheard the conversation and breathed a small sigh of relief to herself that the captain remained deliberately vague. She didn't especially feel like having the bizarre circumstances of her potential maternal reunion being broadcast all over the bridge.

  "All the information," continued Calhoun, "is in your duty log, Commander. You can get current on it at your leisure."

  "Thank you, Captain," she said formally.

  And then she waited… waited for him to say something, to make some sort of comment on the way in which she had handled matters in his absence. It would be perfectly in character for him to make some sort of teasing comment about the "bunnies," or— more appropriately—to offer even a cursory "well done" in regard to the way she had handled the conflict with the Redeemer war vessel that had wanted to blow them out of space.

  But Calhoun said nothing. Instead he went back to studying his report, his legs comfortably crossed, his left foot waving in leisurely fashion.

  She made a slow visual survey of the bridge. No one was looking at her. No one seemed particularly interested in welcoming her back other than with a quick, cursory nod. Otherwise, that was pretty much it.

  She should have been happy about that; relieved even. Instead it left her feeling oddly discontent for some reason that she couldn't quite isolate.

  The turbolift opened and Lieutenant Commander Burgoyne 172, chief engineer of the Excalibur, walked out. Shelby turned and looked at the Hermat. If there was anyone who could be counted on for making an offbeat, uninhibited response, it was Burgoyne.

  "Chief," Calhoun acknowledged hir entrance.

  "Captain," Burgoyne replied with a tilt of hir head. "I wanted to run some cross-checks on the energy transfer problems we've been having. Thought I'd use the station up here since the main one's being tied up for research."

  "Be my guest," said Calhoun.

  "Afternoon, Burgy," Shelby spoke up.

  "Commander," replied Burgoyne by way of greeting, and then s/he went on about hir business.

  That was it. That was all.

  Shelby felt utterly crestfallen.

  There was no reason whatsoever that the bridge crew should make a big deal over Shelby's handling of the crisis earlier. In her heart, she knew that. At most, the captain would make a notation of it in his log and register a commendation. But that was all. Nothing further need be acknowledged, because really, when you got down to it, Shelby had simply done her job. The fact that she had done it extremely well shouldn't really have factored into it.

  Except…

  Except that the Excalibur was unlike any other ship she'd served on.

  She couldn't help but feel that part of it was that the crew took their cue from the captain. Calhoun was a cowboy, no question, who walked with a slight swagger, wore a look of weathered amusement, operated in unexpected and unorthodox manners, and seemed to delight in having little to no regard for the standard procedures under which other ships and commanding officers operated.

  As for the situation that Shelby was in, the people she was surrounded by …

  An ambassador who had come aboard the ship as a stowaway in the science officer's luggage; a conn officer who was… what was McHenry doing now? She glanced over at him and saw that he was moving his fingers in a manner that indicated he was making a cat's cradle with imaginary string. Okay, they had a conn officer who seemed barely there, except when he was needed. And he was having an affair with a multisexual chief engineer, who was in turn (according to the latest rumors, and since the entire vessel seemed to be powered not by dilithium crystals but by innuendo, it was probably accurate) serving to sate the mating lust of the normally staid chief medical officer. The head of security was relatively normal…at least as normal as a walking land mass could be, but the night-side security head was different story. A large, shaggy story. It was as if Calhoun had gone out of his way to handpick a crew designed to appeal to his eclectic and rather offbeat tastes. It was less like serving on a starship than serving on a funhouse mirror version of one. The only one who seemed relatively normal was Lefler.

  Shelby glanced over her duty log, which had been kept up to date by her yeoman so that she would be able to review it handily. She took one look at her, saw that the intended passenger from Momidium was Lefler's mother, who had been dead for a decade, and moaned softly to herself. Et tu, Lefler, she thought.

  Still, with all the quirkiness, with all the oddities that seemed prevalent through the vessel, everyone seemed to be having… Well, fun wasn't the right word. It was a combination of professionalism mixed with camaraderie.

  That was it. That was the bottom line, really. There was an air of joie de vivre on the ship. For all the craziness that went on, for all the offbeat attitudes, everyone—from the captain down to the lowest ranking technician—all seemed to be alive and part of a circuit of energy.

  And Shelby felt as if she wasn't a part of it. She felt wedded to decorum, a living incarnation of Starfleet rules and regulations. It was as if the ship was a party, and she was the designated pooper thereof.

  It was not an attitude that made her feel particularly good about herself, but dammit, she was a trained Starfleet officer. Just because Calhoun's command style was very much a shoot-from-the-hip proposition didn't mean that she had to go along with it. She was complete unto herself, confident and sure of the rightness of her worldview.

  And yet… she was lonely.

  She hated to admit it, but there it was. She had chosen a certain way in which she desired to be regarded, and the fact was, her return to the bridge had been the test of that. If they'd teased her or lampooned her, it would have been roundly insulting, and she would have been well within her rights to light into anyone who treated her in such a disrespectful manner. But instead they treated her with the esteem to which she was entitled. It should have made her feel good about herself, but instead she couldn't help but feel as if it just underscored her outsider status… the status that she had been boasting of to Lefler just a little earlier.

  And then she heard something: the sound of slow, steady hands slamming together. She opened her eyes and turned to see Calhoun, standing, slowly applauding and nodding his head in approval.

  Then McHenry joined in, as did Lefler. When Kebron tried slamming his hands together it created an almost deafening explosion of air, so he did it more gently. But ultimately, within seconds, everyone on the bridge was applauding Shelby and cheering.

  And Shelby, to her own astonishment, started to laugh.

  She couldn't help it. She had clearly been set up. Calhoun had orchestrated it, of that she was positive. He'd wanted to single her out for praise and commendation, but being the maverick and relatively bizarre person that he was, he couldn't find it within himself to do it in anything vaguely approaching a normal manner.

  She continued to laugh, louder and with greater delight, because she felt genuinely touched and amused and even liked. An entire barrage of emotions, one tumbling over the next.

  Calhoun patted her on the back and she turned to him and said, "You always have to be different, do you know that?"

  "That's what my first officer keeps telling me," he replied sanguinely.

  "But what about…" Shelby began, "you know, what I said—"

  "But nothing," Calhoun cut her off. "What you said doesn't matter. It's what you did that counts."

  Looking into the solemn eyes of her crewmates, Shelby suddenly felt ashamed of herself for doubting them and her place among them.

  As if he sensed her discomfort, Calhoun jumped into the silence. "Let me tell you, Commander," he said, "about the colors I saw, wounded and r
aving, after I won the Battle of Maja on Xenex…."

  III

  THE SNORING OF HER SECURITY GUARD was beginning to get on Soleta's nerves.

  The science officer had been probing every inch of the area known as Ontear's cave, displaying the customary patience that was a valuable part of her Vulcan heritage. Her streak of impatience, unfortunately, to say nothing of her more human reactions, could be chalked up to that part of her that was her Romulan heritage. She did not like to dwell on that, though. Instead she far preferred to focus her mind on the task at hand.

  Ontear's cave was situated in a remote and rocky area of Zontar, many miles outside the main city. The ground was pebbly and slippery, and there were crevices that were almost impossible to see until one was practically stepping into them. Ontear, according to Soleta's research, was a seer and wise man who had lived five hundred years previously, and had been instrumental in shaping the direction of his world. He had died, or disappeared, depending upon one's interpretation, under most mysterious circumstances. According to legend, he'd literally been plucked up and away by the wrath of the Zondarian gods themselves. That was just a tad too mystical and over the top as far as Soleta was concerned. Far more likely there had been some sort of freak storm occurrence that had been responsible for hauling Ontear away to his "eternal reward."

  But she was further intrigued by reports that Captain Calhoun had made to her, namely of seeing some sort of ghostly image in the cave while he had been a captive there. That was something that neither he nor she had been quite able to explain and, thus far, she had found no means of supporting its existence.

  Calhoun had been very detailed in his description of the phantom being, which appeared, on the surface of it, to be the ghost of Ontear. But that was not an explanation that thrilled Soleta. What was even more disturbing, though, was that Burgoyne had likewise claimed to have encountered the phantasmic shade, and Soleta had absolutely no idea what to make of that. Group hallucination? Projection of some sort? Possibilities, but none that particularly thrilled her.