Star Trek: New Frontier®: Blind Man’s Bluff

  She had traded out her normal clothes, evocative of the Romulan lifestyle that she had adopted, for something more neutral that she hoped would allow her to blend in, or at least blend in as much as possible when one was a Vulcan, which she hoped people would assume her to be. If they knew there was someone with Romulan blood walking around among them, they might not be quite so accommodating.

  So here she was, having accomplished the first part of what Calhoun had required of her. Soleta could only think that this had been the easy part of her task. From here on in, she was walking on uncertain ground.

  In quick, broad strokes she laid out for Seven of Nine the reason for her coming and the delicate nature of her mission. Seven listened silently to the entire history of Morgan, at least as much of it as Soleta knew. Of how Morgan had once been a human, or far more akin to human than she currently was. She had been an immortal being, traveling the Earth, and later the stars, for more years than anyone could be certain about. Soleta told her of the one-in-a-million fluke that had destroyed Morgan’s body but had transferred her mind, her personality—some even speculated her soul—into the heart of the Excalibur’s computer core. But it was becoming more and more evident through recent events that her soul had not, in fact, made the transition. Hers was a human mind with seemingly absolute power, and Soleta did not have to remind Seven of what both power and absolute power tended to do, at least according to the long-deceased Lord Acton.

  “Morgan Primus is no longer the living, breathing woman that Mackenzie Calhoun once knew,” Soleta concluded. “She has instead become a copy of a copy. With her lack of conscience and her apparently limitless potential, it is a dangerous combination that can no longer be tolerated. It must be attended to, once and for all. And what with your expertise and your connection to the Borg…”

  “I no longer have any connection to the Borg,” Seven reminded her, tapping her face where the implants had once been. “My feelings toward them are… complicated at best. And here you come, a relative stranger, representing a captain I’ve met only in passing, telling me you need me to thrust my head right back into the jaws of it. I just want you to appreciate what it is you’re asking of me.”

  “I do.”

  “How do I even know I can trust you?”

  “What do you mean?” Soleta looked at her in confusion for a moment, but then understood. “Ah. You think I could be a Romulan spy, using you as a means of disabling or even destroying a formidable weapon that resides in the heart of the Excalibur.”

  “The thought did cross my mind,” said Seven. She had been holding a glass of homegrown ale, but she had nearly emptied it and now put it on the table. “As plans go, it would be rather cunning.”

  “Albeit extremely involved.”

  “True, but still…”

  “May I endeavor to convince you?”

  “How,” said Seven, “would you go about doing that?”

  Soleta had been sitting, her back straight, one hand resting on her glass, the other on her lap. Now she stood and walked across the room toward Seven. Seven watched her suspiciously, and she flinched slightly when Soleta reached toward her. “What are you doing?” she said guardedly.

  “Convincing you,” she said, “in such a way that my motivations are completely open to you. Unless you’re afraid?”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Then may I proceed?”

  Seven hesitated for more than just a few moments. There was clearly something going through her mind, something that she didn’t want to articulate. Soleta could readily guess exactly what that was. She came to the conclusion that Seven was very likely not only going to forbid her from putting a mindmeld anywhere near her, but might well try to take Soleta’s outstretched hand and shove it up the Vulcan’s ass. So she was mildly surprised when Seven tilted her chin and looked at Soleta defiantly. “Do as you wish.”

  Soleta reached toward her temple and touched it. She closed her eyes and reflexively Seven did likewise. Slowly, carefully, Soleta eased her mind into Seven’s. She had no desire to be intrusive, nor to give Seven the slightest reason to believe that she was trying to shove her own will into her mind and perhaps even take control of it. It was just enough of a brush against Seven’s consciousness to convince her of the truth of what Soleta was telling her.

  As was always the case in a mindmeld, the actual passage of time was a bit tricky to determine. In this instance, though, Soleta could tell that it hadn’t been much at all. It was no more invasive than the brush of a butterfly’s wing, and once she had made the contact that was required to convey her sincerity to Seven, Soleta withdrew just as quickly, fluttering away.

  The world swiftly came into focus around Soleta. Seven was staring up at her, but there didn’t seem to be anything going on behind her eyes, which momentarily concerned Soleta. But then Seven blinked several times, recovering from the Vulcan telepathic technique, and she stared up at Soleta with conviction. “All right,” she said. “I believe you.”

  “Good.”

  “Or at least I believe that you believe you are acting in good faith.”

  “I’ll take what I can get.”

  “So,” and she leaned back in her chair and stroked her chin thoughtfully, “do you intend to kill her?”

  “You can’t kill something that isn’t alive,” said Soleta. “I’m talking about purging her from the heart of the Excalibur so that she’s no longer a potential threat to the ship or to anyone.”

  “There’s only one answer: You have to introduce a virus into her. Not dissimilar from the tactic we used in attempting to purge Kathryn Janeway from her position as Borg queen.”

  “Exactly,” said Soleta. “And since you were at the center of that operation…”

  “Yes, but there’s obviously a few things you aren’t considering.” She started to tick off each point on her fingers. “First, for all our efforts, as a rescue mission it was a complete failure. We lost Admiral Janeway. Second, the Borg were able to erect a firewall to block the virus and it was only by extreme luck that we were able to accomplish our goal. Third, the virus involved the destruction of the Borg vessel into which it was introduced. If you wind up destroying the Excalibur and everyone aboard, that would be an extreme means of solving the problem. Fourth—and most important—I’m no longer remotely cybernetic. It’s not as if you can load a virus onto me that I will then wind up transmitting into her.”

  Soleta folded her arms, her face a scowl. Seven would never have dreamt how odd a scowl looked on a Vulcan face. She had to think that, by this point, she would have realized that Soleta was part, if not all, Romulan. However her mother had raised her, she had obviously shaken off some of that training. “Those are all valid points,” Soleta finally said after a few moments of thought. “And they are among the reasons that I—”

  “You?”

  “That Captain Calhoun and I felt you would be the ideal person with whom to confer on this matter. So… Seven. What do we do? Do you have any means of concocting and introducing this virus that you’re proposing?”

  “Me? No.”

  “So it’s hopeless?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Seven informed her. “There is, in fact, one being in the galaxy who might be capable of doing what’s required.”

  “One person.”

  “Yes.” She uncrossed her legs and stood up. “So I suggest we go see him before Morgan Primus destroys the Federation.”

  Bravo Station

  Not Too Long After the Meeting Between Seven and Soleta

  i.

  Kat Mueller studied herself in the mirror, turning her head this way and that, and didn’t like what she saw from either angle. She had never been a particularly vain woman. If she had been, then she most certainly would have attended to the scar that she had carried on her face since her youth. Instead she had borne the Heidelberg fencing scar with a great deal of pride.

  Yet now, in her guest quarters at Bravo Station, Mueller looked over her
face with renewed scrutiny and wasn’t wild about what she saw.

  When did I start looking so old?

  There were crow’s feet that either hadn’t been there before or she was just beginning to notice. There were strands of gray hair mixed in with the blond.

  But it was more than that, more than just the cosmetic aspects, and she knew it. There was a general air of weariness that was reflected in her eyes. Her skin looked saggy, as if some of her life force had been sucked out of it. She appeared like someone who had been emotionally kicked in the teeth.

  There was no question in her mind why she looked like this.

  In her mind’s eye, she relived the events of the past days. The assault by the ominous, unyielding creatures known as the Brethren, who had stampeded through the Trident, slaughtering her crewmen at will. Her crew had fought back valiantly, and even taken a few of the bastards with them. And thank whatever gods there were that Mackenzie Calhoun and the Excalibur had shown up to save their collective ass.

  But the hits they had taken, the body count that had piled up…

  She had not been present when Doctor Villers had died, but she was able to visualize it from the recountings; the Doc going down in full fury, not backing away from formidable opponents even though she must have known she was facing her death. But Mueller had been right in the middle of it when her bridge crew had been brutalized, when Mick Gold had been slaughtered. And yes, Mueller had fought back, but she had been helpless to aid her crew….

  She realized that was what she was seeing in her eyes: the air of someone who had been helpless. Mueller had been many things in her life and career, but a helpless victim had never been one of them. It was a soul-deadening prospect for her, and she wasn’t sure it was one she wanted to live with.

  So what are you supposed to do? Fall on your sword in shame? Leave a message behind that tells everyone you simply couldn’t live with the dishonor of letting your crew down? How utterly weak would that be? Is that truly how you want to go out? On a note of weakness, as if you couldn’t face the prospect of everyone knowing just how spectacularly you failed?

  She saw that weakness, that failure, in her reflection, and with a screech of fury she drew back her fist and slammed it into the mirror.

  There was a loud, explosive crack.

  The mirror trembled slightly but otherwise remained intact. Mueller, however, jumped back, uttering a string of profanities in German while clutching her fist. She looked in dismay and irritation at the blood that was on her knuckles and the swelling that was already starting to occur.

  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered, and then winced as she tried flexing her fingers. “Brilliant, Kat. Just brilliant.” Of course it wasn’t glass. If the space station came under assault, the last thing anyone would need would be glass shattering and flying around in people’s faces. The Trident had similar indestructible reflective surfaces.

  Maybe she should indeed fall on her sword and take herself out of the game, because she was starting to think that it was entirely possible she was too damned stupid to live.

  ii.

  Admiral Elizabeth Paula Shelby studied Mueller’s damaged hand as the medtech worked on it and said, with a look of skepticism on her face, “How did you do this again?”

  Mueller was perched on the edge of one of the tables, her dangling legs crossed at the ankles. The medtech had cleaned away the blood, used a bone-knitter to mend the shattered knuckles beneath, and was now finishing the job with a dermal regenerator to regrow the abraded skin. She stared levelly at Shelby and said, “Cut myself shaving.”

  “You cut your knuckles shaving.”

  “You get older, you get hair growing everywhere you don’t want it to.”

  The medtech rolled his eyes but, after a warning glance from Mueller, said nothing.

  Shelby folded her arms and looked skeptically at her. “See, my guess would have been that you were punching something hard out of frustration. A wall or something like that. And the reason for that is it looks exactly like what I did to myself the last time I did that.”

  “You?”

  “I’m married to Mackenzie Calhoun. It comes with the territory, as you well know, having been his lover before that.”

  The medtech cleared his throat to remind them that he was standing right there and probably wasn’t anxious to hear about any of this. The women lapsed into silence, although Shelby was working to repress a smile. For the more seriously inclined Mueller, maintaining a poker face wasn’t all that much of a challenge. “Done,” the medtech finally said, looking relieved to be able to step away from them. Then, seemingly almost as an afterthought, he added, “You asked to be kept apprised of Lieutenant Arex. He’s out of surgery and the prognosis is extremely good.”

  “Can I see him?” she asked, waggling her fingers absently to make certain that the irritation was gone.

  “Absolutely. He’s in recovery, but he’s certainly well enough to have visitors. In fact, the Caitian is already in with him.”

  “M’Ress?” said Mueller.

  “She’s the only Caitian on Bravo,” said Shelby. “Unless you know of another?”

  “No. Right. Of course not. Sorry,” said Mueller, feeling uncharacteristically tentative. “I’m not quite on my game today.”

  “We all have our off days,” Shelby said in a neutral tone.

  Moments later they were approaching the recovery room. They could see, through the observation window, Arex lying beneath the confines of the cellular stasis field. If the operation had gone successfully—and there was every reason to believe it had—Arex’s third arm, severed by the Brethren during their attack, had been reattached and was in the process of healing in the stasis field. With any luck, he would wind up with full mobility of the appendage.

  M’Ress was not without injuries herself. She had been badly burned in the altercation with the Brethren as well, when her attempt to attack one had gone terribly wrong thanks to the superheated surface of their armor. The skin itself had been healed, but only time would enable the fur to grow back. It was in the process of doing so, and M’Ress was idly scratching one of the patches on her bare leg where the new fur was coming in.

  M’Ress was talking to him, and even though they were on the other side of the glass, Mueller could tell that she was speaking gently to him, softly, and reassuringly. She was holding one of his hands in hers and stroking it. Apparently he had only recently come out of surgery. There was exhaustion on his face, and yet he seemed pleased that M’Ress was with him, listening to everything she had to say and basking in her presence. They were so caught up with each other that neither had noticed the captain standing on the other side of the glass.

  “You can go on in,” said Shelby.

  Mueller stood there for a moment, struggling inwardly. Then she turned away and said briskly, “Maybe later.”

  “Captain—”

  Mueller kept walking, her long, efficient strides carrying her quickly out of sickbay. Shelby had to run to keep up with her. “Kat, slow down—”

  Mueller did the opposite, picking up speed, and Shelby, who didn’t feel like running, snapped out, “Captain, halt! That’s an order.”

  Mueller moaned low in her throat even as she skidded to a halt. By all rights she should have kept going, but the bottom line was that Shelby outranked her. Mueller turned and glared at her. “What?”

  Shelby came up close to her and then glanced about. There was no one else around and she said in a low voice, “It wasn’t your fault, Kat. Stop blaming yourself.”

  “I’m not blaming myself—”

  “The hell you aren’t. You’re too damned honest to try and lie to me, Kat, but if it’ll make you feel better, go ahead. Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re not beating yourself up over what happened.”

  Mueller tried to do so, but she couldn’t hold Shelby’s gaze. Instead she looked away and once again growled in frustration. “Of course it’s my fault. I’m the captain. Everything that ha
ppens on the ship begins and ends with me.”

  “Your crew didn’t get hurt or killed because of you. They got hurt or killed because they chose the life they did, and because invaders attacked them. Whether it had been you, me, Mac, or James Freaking Kirk at the helm, it doesn’t matter. The first rule of space exploration is that there are going to be casualties. And the second rule is that captains can’t change the first rule. Do you get that?”

  “Yes. Of course I get that. But getting that isn’t going to spare Arex, M’Ress, and the others all the pain they’ve suffered. Getting that isn’t going to bring Mick or Doc Villers back from the dead.”

  “You did everything you should have, everything you could have…”

  “Do you seriously think that makes me feel any better?” Mueller shot back. “There are only two possible responses to that: Either you’re right or you’re wrong. If you’re right, then how much greater should my frustration level be, knowing that even though I made all the correct moves, my people still died? If you’re wrong, then I get to spend the rest of my career—hell, the rest of my life—reviewing everything that happened and second-guessing myself. And God only knows what happens if that second-guessing winds up seeping into the way I conduct myself here on out.”

  “So what are you saying?” Shelby demanded. “That you got your nose bloodied and because of that you’re going to walk away from your command and responsibility? That you’re going to quit—?”

  “I’m not a quitter.”

  “Then what—?”

  “I don’t know!” Shouting was unusual for Mueller, and she didn’t like the sound of her raised voice. Immediately she reined herself in, but she was trembling with barely repressed anger. “I don’t know, okay, Elizabeth? I’m allowed not to know. I’m allowed to not have all the damned answers. I’m in the dark and right now I don’t know the way out. And I’m not going to know simply because you’re ordering me to.”