The Returned, Part III

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, then.” He stared at her and then added softly, “Thank you for coming to rescue me.”

  “It was my honor, sir.”

  “Turn invisible.”

  She nodded and stepped back, sliding the visor over her face. She touched her wrist and a moment later shimmered and vanished. Calhoun shook his head in wonderment. Say what you wanted about the Romulans—and he could certainly say a great deal—but one could never underestimate their technical brilliance.

  He took a deep breath and then walked out into the hallway.

  There was a guard standing right there.

  He had a large gun of some sort strapped to his back, but he wasn’t bothering to hold it because clearly he didn’t think that Calhoun’s escaping was a possibility. So when he turned and saw the Excalibur captain simply standing there, he reacted with obvious astonishment.

  “Hi,” said Calhoun.

  The Dayan did not go for his weapon. Instead, his hands lashed out to grab Calhoun.

  The captain backpedaled, managing to stay just clear of the guard’s hands. Because his attacker had so many, it was hard for Calhoun to keep track of where the assault was coming from. The Dayan continued to thrust and grab at him, and Calhoun dodged left and right, staying one step ahead. Then he unexpectedly bumped up against the bulkhead, which angled sharply to the right, and the Dayan grabbed his right arm. “Stay still!” he snarled.

  Suddenly the Dayan’s head snapped around as he felt something disengage from behind him. He turned and his jaw dropped when he saw his weapon hanging in midair, aimed right at him.

  “Smile,” came Soleta’s voice, and the weapon fired at him.

  Had the Dayan been a bit faster off the mark, it would have occurred to him to use Calhoun as a shield. But he was too busy being astounded at the sight of his own weapon being aimed at him by nothing, and so he was unprepared as the blast struck him in the chest.

  It did not, however, simply stun him. Instead it blew a hole right through him. The blast ripped into him and exited out his back, missing Calhoun by millimeters. Calhoun gaped at the destruction that the weapon had caused. “Grozit,” he muttered as the remains of the towering guard slumped forward.

  Quickly he caught the guard as he fell, grunting from the Dayan’s weight. This was certainly not a light individual. Calhoun hauled him forward into the room that previously had served as Calhoun’s prison and tossed him onto the floor. “One down,” he said. “About several thousand to go.”

  The gun was still floating nearby, and Soleta handed it to Calhoun. He took it, sagging slightly under the weight. “Damned thing’s heavy,” he muttered.

  “Do you need me to hold it for you?” she asked.

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve got it. You can be far more useful as an unseen weapon. So, where’s the turbolift?”

  “Near as I can tell, this ship doesn’t have any. It’s laid out in extended ramps.”

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  They exited into the hallway, and that was when Calhoun realized they had a problem. “I can’t follow you. I can’t see you.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  He stood there a moment, and then he felt her hand resting on his shoulder. “Good enough,” he said, and she guided him down the corridor.

  At first they didn’t encounter anyone, which was fine as far as Calhoun was concerned. But their luck didn’t last. Less than a minute later, two Dayan came around a corner and stopped dead in their tracks, gaping.

  Calhoun didn’t hesitate, leveling the gun and firing it at the taller of the two. He was blown backward, his internal organs decorating the wall.

  To his astonishment, the second of them put all his hands up. “I’m not a soldier!” he said, clearly so terrified that his voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m the ship’s cook! Please don’t hurt me!”

  “All right. You’ve been promoted. You’re now my guard.” Calhoun noticed that the deceased Dayan lying there was wearing a helmet that partly obscured his face. He reached down and pulled the helmet off, handing it to the cook. “Put it on.”

  “This is outside of my rank . . .” he started to say.

  Calhoun trained the gun on him. “Do I seem to care overmuch?”

  “Not really, no.” He pulled the helmet over his head so that it covered his features.

  “Turn around,” said Calhoun. The cook did so, and Calhoun reached up and attached the gun to his armor. It clicked into place via what appeared to be some manner of magnetic lock. “That gun is there and will remain there. Try to touch it, and I will break all your arms.”

  “I wouldn’t want to touch it. I’ve never even fired one.”

  “Good for you. Just keep your eyes forward, and this should work out for you. Now, if anyone asks, you are escorting us to Nyos.”

  “‘Us’?” The cook looked around, confused. “There’s more than one of you?”

  Damn. That’s right. He can’t see Soleta. That thought should have been foremost on his mind, but he was sufficiently distracted that he had allowed that bit of information to momentarily slip away. “That’s right. I have a ghost with me.”

  “A what?” For a moment the cook sounded incredulous, and then suddenly he let out a startled yelp. Obviously Soleta had chosen that moment to poke him in some way that made her presence known.

  “All right. Get walking,” said Calhoun.

  He did so, keeping his gaze resolutely fixed straight ahead. Calhoun stayed just to his right, and Soleta remained to his right as well, keeping her hand on Calhoun’s shoulder.

  He was annoyed that he wanted to pull away at her touch. It was a patently ridiculous attitude for him to have. Obviously, she was not going to try and seduce him while they endeavored to escape. He had no reason to feel the least bit intimidated. He simply had to put what had happened behind them and focus on what they still had to deal with.

  Another Dayan was now approaching them. He glanced at Calhoun in mild confusion, but, without the slightest prompting, the cook spoke up in a lower, gruffer voice than what he had spoken with earlier. “Nyos wishes to see them.” The other Dayan shrugged, nodded, and kept on going. Calhoun, who had his left hand resting on the gun’s butt so that he could grab it easily, let out a silent sigh of relief.

  That was exactly how it went for all the other Dayan that they encountered. The cook continued to be extraordinarily cooperative as he escorted them down, down, into the depths of the ship. Calhoun kept looking around, trying to get a sense of the vessel’s layout. One never knew when he might be on his own, fleeing through the ship while running for his life. This was simply a situation that demanded all his attention.

  “Here,” Soleta’s voice floated to him. He stopped walking, and the cook halted as well.

  “Is there a lock of some sort on it?” asked Calhoun.

  The cook shook his head. “No. You can just walk in.”

  “You should secure your weapons. You never know when someone will just go in and take things.”

  They walked through the door, which slid open obediently. Calhoun’s eyes widened when he saw the room’s contents.

  It was the single largest room that he had ever been in, and he was someone who had been in the throne rooms of planetary emperors. The room seemed to go on forever, and every square inch of it was lined with weaponry. He had never seen anything like it. “Damn,” he whispered, “are you planning to fight an entire planet?”

  “Several,” said the cook. “At all times. Remember, we prefer to fight people individually when at all possible. It helps to be well armed at such times.”

  Then the cook gasped in surprise as Soleta abruptly appeared out of nowhere. She was studying the weaponry carefully. “We can’t bring too much,” she said to Calhoun. “We want to be able to move.”

  “Grab what you can
.”

  They loaded up as quickly as they could. Calhoun swapped out the large weapon on the cook’s back for one even larger and more formidable looking. The cook was clearly concerned when he saw the weapon being attached to him. “That’s one of Nyos’s favorites,” he said nervously.

  “I’m sure he’ll have no trouble with our borrowing it. He seems a generous type,” said Calhoun.

  He strapped several smaller weapons to his uniform. Carrying weapons was more problematic for Soleta, because if she was simply holding them, they were floating in the air and that would naturally make it quite easy to determine that she was there. She found two small round balls, however, that she was able to take in her hands that—once she closed her fists around them—also vanished. “What are those?” Calhoun asked.

  “I’m reasonably sure they’re some sort of grenade.”

  “All right. Just be careful you don’t set them off prematurely. I have no desire to blow us up.”

  “That’s good advice.”

  Satisfied that they were armored up as well as they could be under the circumstances, Calhoun nodded to Soleta. She dropped the visor over her face and disappeared again, prompting the cook to shake his head in obvious disbelief. “Nyos would love to get one of those,” he murmured.

  “Let him invent his own,” said Calhoun.

  They emerged from the weapons bay into the corridor, and that was when they heard the sounds of pounding feet. At the far end of the corridor, Nyos ran into view, and he had at least half a dozen men backing him up.

  “Problem,” said Calhoun, even as he yanked the gun off the cook’s back. There was no longer any point in endeavoring to skulk around the ship. They had been spotted, and now it was just a question of managing to stay one step ahead of their pursuers.

  He pulled the trigger, and a blast of energy erupted from the muzzle of the blaster he had balanced on his shoulder. Nyos cried out in alarm as he and his men leapt to either side and the blue energy slammed between them. It crashed into the wall and blew a hole right through it, providing a view into the adjoining room.

  Calhoun let out a low whistle, impressed at the power of the weapon he was wielding.

  “Let’s go, Captain,” Soleta’s voice floated from nearby. “Down the corridor, to the right.”

  Calhoun backed up, laying down a barrage of suppressing fire as they moved. Nyos and his people were flat on the deck. Nyos shouted, “You can’t get away, Calhoun! Surrender now, and we will spare your life!”

  That hardly sounded like much of an offer to Calhoun as he continued to retreat. He had no idea what the energy capacity was like in his weapon, but he didn’t see any need to hold back. He wasn’t anticipating a lengthy, sustained battle. This was his chance to get out of there, and he was going to seize it.

  He was pulling the cook along with him, using the reluctant Dayan as a shield against return fire. It seemed to be working, because although Nyos and his people were armed, they were not shooting back, obviously in fear of hitting the cook. His services had to be truly valued on the ship.

  “This way!” Soleta’s voice called. “To the right!”

  Calhoun obeyed her instructions, continuing to back up with the cook as a blocker. “Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him!” the cook kept calling, although presumably he was more worried about his own safety than he was Calhoun’s.

  “Keep going. Just a little farther,” Soleta instructed him.

  “This is pointless!” Nyos shouted after him. “You cannot get away! There is no exit from this vessel!”

  Calhoun prayed that he was wrong.

  “Captain, it’s here!” Soleta said. “To your immediate left!”

  Calhoun’s head snapped around, and he saw a pair of doors that were closed in front of him. He moved toward them, but they didn’t open. “The hell—”

  “They’re secured,” said the cook. “They must have figured out where you were going and locked it down.”

  “Back away, Captain,” said Soleta. One of the balls that she’d been carrying was now visible, since she had opened her hand, and she tapped a button on it. The ball immediately turned from silver to red, and she dropped it at the base of the door. “Back away, I said!”

  Calhoun did as she instructed, backing away hurriedly from the door. It occurred to him that they had no idea of the device’s range. Soleta may have just wound up blowing them up along with the door if they weren’t able to get clear of it.

  The grenade exploded. The doors were instantly ripped away, and debris flew in all directions. Calhoun was blown off his feet and onto his back.

  The cook let out a truncated yell and fell over. There was a large chunk of metal buried in his chest. The life fled from his eyes.

  “Damn,” said Calhoun as he scrambled to his feet.

  “Kill them!” howled Nyos from down the hall, and the Dayan leveled their weapons at him.

  Calhoun scrambled across the deck and into the auxiliary bridge, still cradling the large blaster in one arm.

  There were two Dayan on the bridge, but they were stunned. One of them saw Calhoun coming, and he sat up, swinging a blaster around to open fire on him. Suddenly his head snapped around and sagged to one side. Calhoun immediately realized what had happened: an invisible Soleta had just dropped him with a neck pinch.

  The bridge was relatively small but seemed quite efficient. Or at least what was left of it was; it was somewhat in disarray, since an explosion had just occurred outside the main doors. Apparently they were somewhere near the top of the ship, because there was a large dome above them that provided a magnificent view of deep space. The stars shone outside invitingly.

  Soleta yanked her visor off and grabbed the other Dayan, clamping her hand around his throat. He gasped at her strength, his eyes widening. “Transport us to the Excalibur,” she ordered him.

  “I . . . I have no idea where it is,” he stammered. “Anyway, I cannot. Transportation is locked down.”

  “Dammit,” said Calhoun.

  At that moment, Nyos’s voice came from just outside the door. “Calhoun,” he called to him. “We wanted to do this the easy way. We wanted to let you live. You are making that an impossible goal for us. You have ten seconds to throw your weapon out here and surrender. The only other alternative is death.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Calhoun. “Maybe the only alternative is death.” He looked at Soleta, whose face was floating a short distance away. She cast a glance at the dome overhead and nodded. She knew the option open to them and was perfectly happy to go along with it. An instant later her full body appeared, since she had turned off the invisibility function. “But here’s the thing, Nyos. If death is what’s left open to us, then I’ll choose the method of death. Not you.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?”

  Calhoun swung his blaster straight up and opened fire on the dome.

  It blew a hole in it, and just like that, the stars called to them.

  Soleta threw her arms around Calhoun, and both of them were yanked out into the void.

  ii.

  NYOS LET OUT a startled yell as all the air around him was sucked out. He started skidding along the deck, his soldiers pulled along with him. He tried to find something to grab on to but couldn’t; nothing provided him sufficient grounding.

  And then, just like that, the rush of air ceased. The self-healing vessel had obviously repaired itself from whatever damage had been done to it.

  Nyos ran onto the auxiliary bridge, stepping over the body of the fallen cook. He was tremendously upset about that; he liked that cook’s food preparation. Of all the people to die, it had to be him.

  Not to mention the fact that the cook was his brother.

  That was the worst. His kind, horrendously gentle brother who had seemed to enjoy only food preparation and had no taste for battle at all.
So Nyos had assigned him to be the ship’s cook, and his brother had cheerfully fulfilled his tasks. He had never once found himself in any sort of combat situation.

  Until now.

  And he had barely lasted minutes.

  If Calhoun wasn’t dead, Nyos was going to kill him himself, slowly, with his bare hands, and enjoy every moment of it.

  He strode onto the auxiliary bridge and looked around.

  It was empty.

  He looked up and was startled to see one of his people floating outside. He was clearly dead, drifting in the depths of space.

  Of Calhoun, there was no sign at all.

  “Damnation,” he said.

  New Thallon

  i.

  MCHENRY HAD NO idea how he knew where the coliseum was. He received no messages, nor any contact from Q. And yet suddenly, as sundown approached, the location abruptly popped into his head.

  He had been lying on the bed, resting. He had been there more or less the entire day, in a vague sense of self-contemplation. Suddenly, an image appeared in his mind. He knew without question that it was the coliseum where Q would be waiting for him, and it was not an appointment to which he was eagerly looking forward. But Mark knew that he had no choice; he had to be there.

  He rolled off the bed and called out, “Robin! I know where I’m supposed to go.”

  There was no response. This was a little odd to him. He’d expected to hear the sound of her feet running up the stairs and coming into the bedroom. Instead there was nothing. He wondered if perhaps she had fallen asleep on the living room couch while spending time with Cwansi.

  He ran down the stairs and emerged into the living room, but she wasn’t there. When he called her name, she didn’t answer.

  “She’s gone,” he said. “Where the hell did she go?”

  The answer naturally did not come to him out of thin air. He checked every square inch of the house just to be sure and couldn’t find her. So he decided to search for her in a different fashion.