“M’k’n’zy, you are the Summoned,” continued B’ndri the shaman. “Step forward.”
Calhoun walked toward C’n’daz, stopping about two feet away from him. While C’n’daz glowered at him, Mackenzie Calhoun kept his face carefully neutral.
“The blood challenge,” began the shaman, “is a tradition stretching back to our earliest origins. It is the means by which disputes are settled. The means by which honor is maintained. The means by which we establish who we are, what we are, and where we are going. The weapons you see around you,” and he gestured grandly, “are to be utilized in a specific order that has been passed down by oral tradition from generation to generation. The rituals in preparation for battle you will now undergo have likewise been passed down, from father to son, from shaman to shaman. These rituals will prepare you, focus you. The sun is now at its zenith. You will perform these rituals by the letter and spirit of the time-honored traditions, and as the sun moves across the sky, there will be a new series of prayers and meditations in which we will all join, that will—”
Calhoun took one quick step forward and drove his foot up into C’n’daz’s groin, producing a loud “squish” noise. C’n’daz doubled over, his face a portrait in surprised pain, and he sagged to his knees.
“Or you could just do that,” said the shaman without blinking an eye.
C’n’daz tried to stagger to his feet. Calhoun was impressed by that. Considering the pain that was likely exploding behind C’n’daz’s eyes at that moment, any response beyond sobbing and moaning was a plus. He was disinclined, however, to congratulate him. Instead he pivoted in place and slammed a spin-kick into C’n’daz’s face. C’n’daz toppled over, tears beginning to gather in his eyes, his legs curled up like an infant’s. He had one hand tucked between his thighs, and the other was clutching his nose, from which blood was fountaining.
“You wanted blood, C’n’daz?” demanded Calhoun in disgust. “There’s your blood.” He knelt down, yanking C’n’daz’s hand away from his face so the blood was visible on his palm. “See? See how slick it is? How pretty? Do you have any idea how much blood I’ve spilled, C’n’daz? Enough to bathe in, to keep a tub flowing in it for the rest of my life. I find it hard to believe you’ve forgotten, because you were there. But I haven’t forgotten. And I’m tired of it.” He stepped back and shouted to the silent audience members. “I’m tired of a place where all I dwell on is blood! Perhaps it won’t always be so. I know I’ll always think of Xenex as somewhere I want to be. The customs, the traditions…they’ll always mean something to me. But I’m drowning in the blood here, C’n’daz. Drowning in the bloody memories. I have to make new memories…or there’ll be nothing left of me! I hope you all understand that. And any of you who don’t…the hell with you.”
He was prepared to walk away when he was stopped by the shaman. “You’ve forgotten something, M’k’n’zy. C’n’daz’s life is in your hands.”
Calhoun looked back at C’n’daz, now sitting up, looking battered and apprehensive.
“So what? What am I supposed to do with it?” demanded Calhoun.
“If you are wise? Take it. He will not stop hating you. Not stop trying to kill you. Leaving him alive settles nothing.”
“Nor does killing him,” Calhoun said firmly. “This foolishness is over. I hope you all understand that I’m just trying to live my life. You don’t need me anymore. Allow me to fade away gracefully into the history of this world, instead of trying to hammer me into a shape that you find preferable. A leader in war should never be a leader in peace. He’ll atrophy. He might as well be dead. You don’t need me. You need D’ndai. So please…”
“M’k’n’zy!” D’ndai shouted, pointing in alarm.
Calhoun turned just in time to see the long, evil-looking blade in C’n’daz’s hand. His actions were pure reflex, no thought given them at all. He spun to the side of C’n’daz’s outthrust arm, gripped the wrist with one hand, twisted down, around and up, and then heard a horrifying moist noise he knew all too well. He stepped back, pulling his blood-covered hands away, as C’n’daz staggered with his own blade buried deep in the pit of his stomach.
C’n’daz, his eyes a world of hurt, stared at Calhoun in silent accusation. What he was accusing Calhoun of, the Xenexian could not even begin to guess.
“Are you happy?!” shouted Calhoun. “Is this what you wanted?!”
Whether it was or not would never be known. C’n’daz fell forward onto the sand and lay there, unmoving, as the ground beneath him became thick with his lifeblood.
Calhoun stood there, staring. He had seen so much death, caused most of it. What was one more? One more?
He became vaguely aware that D’ndai was at his side. The shaman was intoning that the blood challenge was over.
“Get me out of here,” M’k’n’zy said to his brother in a low voice. “I’m going to be sick.”
Chapter Nineteen
Now
i.
“Move! Move!”
Kebron was shouting as loudly as he could while he acted as a barrier to the monstrosities that were in pursuit of them.
He had been endeavoring to keep back the flood of animals in the same way that a mighty boulder on a beach would provide protection to land inhabitants by absorbing the crashing of the waves. The ersatz Janos had thrown him for a loop at first, but he had recovered quickly. That the creature had knocked him over at all was more stinging to his pride than anything else. The Brikar as a whole preferred to think of themselves as unassailable, and Kebron wasn’t about to tamper with that self-satisfied mind-set.
Flat on his back, the creature’s mouth roaring in his face, its fearsome talons tearing at his hide and actually making deep, hacking slashes in it, Kebron had not allowed himself the slightest hesitation or dent in his conviction that he would triumph. He had disposed of the creature through the simplest means possible: He had shoved his fist up and through the beast’s mouth and out the top of its head. Brains and gore had flown straight up, and the lesson was not lost on the attacking beasts that were bounding toward them. They let out a collective squeal and beat a brief retreat. They didn’t take their eyes off Kebron, seeing him as a terrifying and formidable foe.
Kebron, for his part, was briefly stuck. He was wearing a mutilated monster on his right arm, and was having trouble shaking it off. With seconds to act, he braced the creature’s corpse with his left hand and yanked straight upward, tearing his right arm loose with a rending of blood and skull. This prompted another shriek from the animals, and then a howl of outrage.
Then they charged en masse.
He must have been very popular, thought Kebron. He made a move toward Bethom, who was laughing at the scene, and then the creatures had come between them. Turning, Kebron started running. Burgoyne and Selar were already ahead of him, and more beasts were angling in from the right. The exit from the room was just ahead and Kebron shouted “Out of the way!” as he sped up. The other officers broke right and left as, with the power of an asteroid, he slammed into the door. It was locked, but that was irrelevant once he got through with it.
One of the creatures, looking like a cross between a bear and a wolf, got to Burgoyne, and Burgoyne emitted a challenging shriek of hir own, hir claws extended from the tips of hir fingers. S/he swiped hir hands around, going straight for the creature’s throat, searching out the jugular. The creature hadn’t expected such resistance and flinched back, and that was its undoing. Burgoyne’s talons found its throat and sliced through it effortlessly. The creature fell back, clutching at its throat, then falling onto its back and flailing about.
Another came in, far faster. It bounded over its fallen brethren, shoved past Burgoyne, and went straight for Selar. It slammed into her and they both went down.
“Selar! Kebron, help her!” howled Burgoyne, and Kebron was right there, yanking the creature off Selar, expecting to find her dead. Instead the creature was unconscious, stunned by the Vulcan neck pinch. Selar looked shaken but det
ermined. Kebron yanked her to her feet and then off them, slinging the protesting doctor over his shoulder, and they charged out the door, Burgoyne bringing up the rear.
They pounded up the hallway, and there were scientists standing there, looking stunned, bewildered, unclear as to what was happening. Then they saw the stream of creatures charging up the hallway after the fleeing starship crewmen and they did everything they could to get out of the way. Some managed. Some didn’t. Kebron didn’t care. He had other things to worry about.
Burgoyne, formerly chief engineer of the Excalibur, had rotated the frequency of hir phaser to make it operational in the static field, and was firing at random behind them. S/he wasn’t bothering with the stun setting; s/he had it on full disrupt. S/he hit creature after creature, blasting them into free-floating atoms, but there seemed to be more and more, and the damned things weren’t stopping. There was no telling how many of them Bethom had made.
“In here!” bellowed Kebron, darting to the right, and Burgoyne followed. They entered a room, the door sliding shut behind them, and Burgoyne whipped hir phaser around, thumbed the setting down, and fired it into the junction box controlling the door. The box melted into a puddle of circuitry, effectively sealing the door.
Kebron dropped Selar unceremoniously to the floor. To her credit she said nothing, straightening her uniform and clambering to her feet. “They cannot get in?” she asked.
“That’s the upside. The downside is, we’re not going anywhere at the moment,” said Kebron.
“We’ll see about that,” said a determined Burgoyne. S/he looked at the equipment lining the walls. “This is their computer center.”
“Yes,” Kebron said.
“You’re hoping I can overcome their grid that’s shutting down any possible transporter link.”
“Yes.”
Quickly Burgoyne moved to the computers and began running systems checks. “This must have been what Bethom wanted all along.”
“What do you mean?” asked Selar.
“This. The facilities of the Daystrom Institute. Far beyond anything that he was going to be able to put together himself. Gods, talk about long-range planning.”
“I am not greatly concerned about long-range planning at the moment,” said Selar. “Of far more interest to me is short-range planning, including whatever plans you might have to return us to the Excalibur.”
The door at the far end of the room shuddered.
“The neighbors are restless,” said Kebron, facing the door. Once more it trembled under the thudding of something, or things, on the other side. “Burgoyne, a bit more alacrity, if you please.”
“We have a problem.”
“What, just the one?”
“All the commands for the defense grid are specifically encrypted and encoded to Bethom or Christopher,” said Burgoyne. “I can’t access it, which means I can’t lower it.”
“There has to be some means of punching through, to alert Excalibur to our location and situation,” Selar insisted.
Burgoyne’s mind raced…and then s/he smiled, displaying the tips of hir fangs. S/he began tapping instructions into the padds in front of hir.
“What are you doing?” said Kebron, casting a sidelong glance at the door and not being thrilled with the way it appeared to be holding up.
“Normal com channels may be blocked,” Burgoyne said. “But I can create a direct link with the Excalibur’s computer.”
“What kind of link?”
“A simple energy pulse. But I can control the speed and frequency with which it goes.”
“I do not understand,” Selar said. “Will that be of any use?”
“With any other computer in any other vessel? No. Computers are wonderful resources in terms of determining facts, but they can’t make intuitive leaps. They wouldn’t recognize the pulse for what it was, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know to inform anyone else. They’d just note it and log it. But the Excalibur doesn’t have just any computer.”
ii.
Calhoun was most curious to see whether Picard would call his bluff. Until faced with the direct challenge to it, he couldn’t say for sure if it was a bluff or not. At that moment, Calhoun had no more idea of how things were going to turn out than anyone else on the very silent Excalibur bridge. He was, however, the only person there who had to pretend that he knew everything that was going to happen.
Picard was about to respond, and Calhoun braced himself. Then Picard paused, apparently being informed of something by Data. He looked up, frowning. Instead of addressing the Mexican standoff they had before them, he said, “Calhoun…are you aware that some sort of energy grid has been erected around the Daystrom Institute? We wouldn’t be able to locate Janos in any event.”
“What?” He looked to Soleta for confirmation.
After a moment, the science officer nodded. “It’s true, Captain. I can’t get any sensor readings at all.”
“Com?”
“Useless,” said Robin Lefler. “I can’t raise any sort of hailing frequency.”
“How long has this ‘blackout’ field been in effect?”
“Not sure, sir,” Soleta told him, sounding apologetic. “We’ve been distracted.”
“Yes. Yes, we have.” He studied Picard over a distance of kilometers and what seemed years. “It’s your fault, you know.”
“How is this disaster my fault?” demanded Picard.
“If you’d had the brains to leave me on Xenex instead of talking me into attending the Academy, none of this would have happened.”
Despite the severity of the situation, Picard actually chuckled at that. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it is my fault at that.”
“Captain!”
It was Morgan, and her computerlike dispassion was gone. Instead she was speaking with barely controlled urgency. “I’m receivng an SOS.”
“A what?” asked Calhoun.
“An SOS. An old-style distress signal utilizing an antiquated method called Morse code,” she explained. “Someone’s sending a pulse directly into my systems, at the appropriate intervals. There’s no mistaking it.”
“Do we know who?”
“No, sir. It’s just the same SOS, over and over again. I can, however, use the pulse as a trace for coordinates, lock on and beam them up. Or, for that matter, use those same coordinates to beam help down there.”
“Except,” said Calhoun, “if we drop our shields…”
“Then we can blow you to hell,” Picard noted, sounding far too cheerful about the prospect as far as Calhoun was concerned. “Now let’s see. How did you put it? Ah, yes. Call me.”
“Captain Calhoun,” Robin suddenly spoke up.
He didn’t want to hear it. “What?”
“Selelvian war vessel approaching, sir.”
“Naturally,” said Calhoun. His mind raced, trying to come up with something. Anything.
“Well, Captain?” asked Picard. He sounded patient, but Calhoun knew that wasn’t the case.
“You wanted proof, Jean-Luc?” he said abruptly.
“Proof?”
“Of the Selelvians’ manipulations of the Federation?”
“That would certainly help matters,” said Picard.
“All right, then,” said a determined Calhoun. “Then here’s how we get it….”
Then
The first of the two communiqués reached Mackenzie Calhoun as he sat in a small room at Starbase 6, staring at the wall and wondering what the hell he was going to do with his life. The room wasn’t much. Then again, Starbase 6 was one of the older Federation facilities and wasn’t exactly built for comfort.
He almost didn’t answer it. He was simply lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, much in the same way that he’d been doing the previous two days. The computer station beeped at him insistently and he glared at it. On Xenex, there were no computers. People had privacy. People could be alone when they wanted. In the world of the Federation, the damned things were everywhere.
There was no privacy, no nothing. The Federation, one big happy family. It was enough to make him sick…again.
And still the thing continued to beep at him. Briefly he considered disposing of it the way he had the other one, back on Earth. But that seemed needlessly destructive. With an aggravated sigh, he called, “Connect.”
The screen promptly flared to life and he sat up. For some reason he wasn’t the least bit surprised when he saw who was looking out at him from the screen.
“Hello, Picard,” he said.
Jean-Luc Picard smiled grimly at him from the screen. “It seems like yesterday you called me PEE-cahd.”
“Things change.”
“So I hear. And you’ve been quite busy. I’m told you blew up the Kobayashi Maru.”
“Yes, sir. I did.”
“Mind telling me why?”
“It was blocking my view of Venus.”
Picard looked confused. “What?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was how I dealt with it.” He smiled grimly. “And, as it turns out…it was a complete lie.”
“In what sense?”
Calhoun didn’t answer.
After a moment, Picard said, “I’m told that you departed the Academy in something of a hurry…and haven’t been back. Missed a few classes. There’s still time for you to make them up and not miss out on graduation.”
“Why do you care?” demanded Calhoun. “How do you know what’s going on with me?”
“I left word with a few key people to keep me informed. I think you have potential. More than that…I think you have a great destiny.”
Calhoun laughed bitterly at that, flopping back on his bed. “It’s comforting to know you think so highly of me.”
“Mackenzie…what happened?” asked Picard, not ungently.
“A friend of mine on Xenex died.”
“Was it sudden?”
“In a sense. He died suddenly after I buried a blade in his stomach.”
“Merde,” muttered Picard, a word that Calhoun hadn’t heard him say before. “Why…did you kill him?”