Lucius promptly stopped talking, and that told Soleta everything she needed to know. He was down here, down in engineering, as she had foreseen. The fact that he stopped talking didn’t mean she’d hit him; the chances were far greater that she hadn’t. But he’d had to duck out of the way. If he’d been elsewhere in the vessel, his comments would have continued uninterrupted.
He obviously figured out that he had tipped off, at the very least, his general whereabouts. “Well played, Legate,” his voice echoed in grudging admiration.
“In answer to your question,” Soleta said, as if her little stunt was so obvious that it required no more comment on her part, “once I’m done murdering you—as I did with the rest of my crew—I had more or less made up my mind to turn this vessel over to the Federation and try to repair my relations with them.”
He didn’t respond at first, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. When he spoke again, however, she immediately understood: He was so seized with rage at the very notion that he had needed a moment to compose himself.
“Outrage,” he snarled. “Scandalous! Is this how you honor the memory of the Praetor whom you claim to have so admired! By turning over one of his most advanced ships to the Federation?”
“As opposed to the way you honor him? By treachery and mutiny? Besides, in case you’ve forgotten, the Federation is supposed to be allied with us.”
“A happenstance of mutual convenience! It will never last, never. True Romulans must be prepared for that time.”
Soleta crept through the system couplings, making her way around the warp core. She knew that engaging in this bizarre back-and-forth with Lucius bordered on madness. She should simply be silent, lie in wait for him, pray for him to make a mistake. Instead, against all reason and logic, she continued to engage him. “Well, thank you for the lessons you’ve taught me about how ‘true Romulans’ do things. From my observation, true Romulans such as your old mentor exploit friendships for the purpose of personal gain. True Romulans betray their commanders. If that’s a true Romulan, then I’m more than content to be what I am.”
“And what would that be?”
She ducked under the cloaking device, throbbing with a gentle crimson tint that cast an eerie glow on her surroundings. “I would think you’d be ready to tell me that. After all, you seem to have all the answers. What do you think I am?”
With greater speed than she would have thought possible, Lucius emerged from the shadows as if he were one of them, and his blaster was pointed right at her skull. “Dead,” he said.
She froze where she was, her disruptor extended out in front of her. Her voice flat and even, she said, “Drop your disruptor, Lucius. I have you right where I want you.”
“An interesting if bizarre jest, Legate,” he told her, “considering that I am standing behind and to the side of you, and your disruptor is pointed away from me.”
“Nevertheless, what I say is true. Don’t make me fire.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Vulcans never bluff.”
She knew if she made the slightest turn toward him, he would fire. The only thing that had stopped him from blowing her brains out at close range was undoubtedly his curiosity over her apparent confidence.
“Very well, then,” said Lucius. “Shoot me.”
Soleta could practically hear his heartbeat speed up with excitement, and then she was thinking of nothing but the pounding of blood in her own ears as she squeezed off a shot with her disruptor.
The disruptor blast went exactly where she intended it to: at a highly reflective control panel that she was targeting at an angle. It ricocheted off the control panel, bounded off the security field in place around the cloaking device, and hit Lucius squarely in the chest. The only thing that saved his life was that the disruptor blast was less than fully potent because the two targets it had already struck dissipated some of its power. That, combined with the fact that he was wearing a chest plate, stopped the disruptor blast from tearing a hole in him the size of Soleta’s fist. It did, however, serve to knock him clean off his feet. Lucius thudded to the ground, but he still managed to hold on to his disruptor. He fired off a blast and Soleta ducked back to avoid it. It bought Lucius just enough time to get out of the way and take refuge behind a bank of power cells. It was a good hiding place; there was no way that Soleta could open fire on him back there without crippling the ship’s power.
“Lucky shot!” he called to her.
The truth was that he was right. It was a lucky shot. She’d given herself a one-in-ten-thousand chance of pulling it off even as she’d taken it. But there was no reason she had to let him know that.
“Tell me, Lucius,” she called defiantly. “What bothers you more? That I’m a murderer? Or that maybe I’m not only your equal…but your superior.”
“I still don’t think you can kill me.”
“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
“Let’s say you were my superior. Am I to respect one who would turn this vessel over to the Federation?!”
She was working on coming around him. She peeked around a corner and didn’t spot him. He’d repositioned himself yet again. She muttered a curse under her breath even as she asked, “And what’s your brilliant plan? To return this ship to Romulus? You’ll never make it that far!”
“Your concern for me is touching.”
“I have no concern for you. I don’t give a damn if you live or die. I’m simply pointing out the logic that you fail to see.” She flattened her back against a wall and remained in a crouch. “There is a power vacuum in the Empire right now. Individual groups have had the opportunity to form alliances. You don’t represent an ally to them. You represent a prize, a bonus left over from the previous regime. That’s why they tried to take this vessel over your dead body before, and that’s why they will succeed in accomplishing it should you hand them another opportunity. If you think you’re going to arrive in triumph, you’ve badly underestimated the situation. The only way you’re going to wind up back on the Romulan homeworld is in free fall, indistinguishable from any other bit of space debris plummeting from orbit.”
No response.
She said nothing either. Time seemed to stretch and keep on stretching. She knew he was near, and more than that…she knew that this was it.
Soleta pivoted around the corner, ready to fire, and found Lucius’s disruptor pointed right into her face. Lucius had the same view, except naturally it was Soleta’s disruptor staring at him.
They stood there for what seemed a very long time, neither lowering their weapon…but neither firing.
His face, which was partly obscured by the weapon that was pointing at her, was impossible for her to read. His finger was on the trigger, as her own was, and there was no reason at all not to pull her own trigger before he did. Yet she didn’t. Nor did he.
“Do you have an alternative?” he asked finally, his weapon unwavering.
“I might be willing to work on one, provided I had sufficient incentive.”
“A disruptor pointed at your face is insufficient incentive?”
“There’s one pointed at your face,” she reminded him, “and you don’t seem to be working too hard on an alternative.”
He considered that. “True enough,” he said finally. “A suggestion, then. I’ll lower my weapon, you lower yours, and we’ll work on discussing possible alternatives.”
“Why should I? Won’t I be proving that I’m ‘inferior’ to you because I’m not killing you?”
“And wouldn’t the reverse be true?”
“Yes.” Her voice tightened. “Look at the body count our mutual respect requires. What do you call that?”
“The Romulan way.”
“Really. Well, then…say hello to the Vulcan way. The only way we’ll ever trust each other.”
Her hand stabbed out and gripped his face. He gasped, his eyes widening.
“Our minds are merging,” she said forcefully as the weapon s
lipped from his hand. “Our minds are…are…”
The images of her pervaded his thoughts…the intensity…the passion…felt to Soleta as if they were igniting her soul.
At which point the negotiations took a most unexpected turn….
U.S.S. Excalibur
“It’s not true, is it?” Moke demanded.
He had been running all over the ship for what seemed like hours, and he had finally managed to track down Calhoun’s son Xyon. Xyon was seated at a far table in the team room, a drink in front of him and a lifetime of enmity toward his father behind him. He looked up at Moke, who was standing there with a hopeful expression on his face.
“You’d know. He’d have told you. I can’t get Kebron to tell me anything. Or Xy. I thought maybe you would.”
Xyon took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “I know what you know,” he said. “Calhoun has locked himself in with a couple of aliens and they’re all supposed to die very slowly unless the aliens come to terms and agree to play nice.”
“But he can’t let that happen!”
“He’s the captain of the ship, Moke. He can do whatever he wants.”
Moke’s face was set. “I want to talk to him,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s possible…”
“Yes it is! There’s an observation deck above the shuttlebay! I can look down from there, and there’s a speaker and everything! It’s sealed in, so I bet the disease can’t get at anyone in there! If you could get me in…”
“Why not go yourself?”
“Because,” Moke said, making a sour face, “there’s guards there. They’re stopping me from getting in there. But I’m figuring you can.”
Xyon leaned back in his chair. “And how,” he asked with mild amusement, “do you figure that? What brilliant plan have you come up with that would thwart all the resources of the Excalibur and its crew. What ‘in’ do I have that they’ve overlooked?”
“Your ship. Your ship’s got a transporter, and you can talk to your ship and activate it from outside. Don’t tell me you can’t. You did it when we were in there, to get us to safety. You can tell your ship to beam us in there and then up to the observation deck.”
Xyon stared at him for what seemed, to Moke, a very long time. “Grozit, that’s a brilliant plan,” he finally admitted.
“Is it?”
“Yeah, pretty brilliant. I wish I’d thought of it. Would you mind if I told other people I thought of it, if they ask?”
“Sure. It means I won’t get in trouble.” He looked at Xyon askew. “You…do want to save Mac, don’t you?”
“You mean would I prefer it if he didn’t die?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Much to my surprise, I’m coming around to the realization that the answer is yes.” He stared at the glass in front of him. “Go figure.”
Moke waited with growing impatience for Xyon to say something else, and then Xyon reached over and tapped his wrist com unit. “Lyla,” he said softly, as if concerned someone was listening in. “This is Xyon.”
“Hello, Xyon,” the voice of his ship’s onboard intelligence wafted through the air. “I’ve missed you.”
“Same here. Look, I need you to do something for me.” He reached out, draped an arm around Moke, and drew him close beside him. Then he told his ship exactly what he needed her to do.
Seconds later, there were turned heads and startled exclamations from the other off-duty denizens of the team room as Moke and Xyon sparkled out of existence. It was still a bizarre sensation for Moke, and he always felt as if it were the rest of the world dissolving into molecules around him, rather than he himself. He barely had time to register the surroundings of Xyon’s vessel around him before he disappeared yet again, and ended his atom-scrambling odyssey in the observation deck above the shuttlebay. Xyon was standing right next to him, and he rested a hand on Moke’s shoulder to steady him.
Moke could scarcely believe what he was seeing.
Mackenzie Calhoun was slumped on the floor, and he looked absolutely terrible. His skin was gray and mottled, covered with blotches and wounds that were seeping pus. Xyon had flipped on the audio connect unit so that they could hear everything that was going on down there, and even from this distance, it was easy to discern that Calhoun’s breathing was uneven and ragged.
There were two other beings in there with him, neither of whom Moke recognized. They were, however, extremely bizarre-looking. Moreover, they were developing lesions that were similar to what Mac had on him. They weren’t as profuse as they were on Mackenzie Calhoun. It was perfectly obvious that, whatever was happening to them, Calhoun’s condition was furthest along.
The smaller of the two creatures was touching his sores gingerly and shaking his head, murmuring, “It can’t be. It can’t be.” The other was much larger, and the sores on his body were considerably bigger than those on Calhoun and the smaller one. He was pacing like a captive animal, and he wasn’t speaking at all. Instead, every so often, he would let out a protesting, inarticulate howl and smash one or more of his tentacles against what was apparently a forcefield separating him from the other creature and Calhoun.
“Maaaac!” The cry was ripped involuntarily from Moke’s throat. It was enough to prompt Calhoun to turn his head and look up at him—squinting as hard as he could, since he was unable to make out who it was who had called his name.
Finally Calhoun spotted him. He sagged back against the wall once more. When he spoke, his voice sounded nothing like the calm and confident, measured tones to which Moke was accustomed.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he managed to say, his voice sounding raspy. “You should have stayed away. Xyon,” and looking like he was summoning all his strength, he managed to raise his hand enough to waggle a scolding finger at his son. “Xyon, this is all your fault. You brought him here…”
“I thought you might want the opportunity to say goodbye,” said Xyon. It was impossible for Moke to determine just what was going through Xyon’s mind. His voice was flat, his true mind impossible to predict. It might be that Xyon was keeping everything together for his own and for Moke’s sakes. Or it could be that he really just didn’t care, and perhaps was even a little glad to see Calhoun potentially on his way out.
“I…didn’t want you here,” Calhoun told him. “I didn’t want you to…see me like this…”
“Like what?” Xyon demanded. “Deeply embroiled in the midst of another of your famous suicidal stunts? You two…you whatever-you-ares,” he addressed the two beings who were down there with Calhoun. They looked up at him with a confused weariness. “Did you know the type of lunatic you were becoming involved with when you set foot, or tendril or whatever, on this ship?”
“Stop it!” Moke cried out.
“The fact is,” Xyon continued relentlessly, “he’s been looking for an excuse to get out from under for ages now, and you’ve gone and given him one. I almost feel sorry for you. I always thought he was an accident waiting to happen, and you’re the poor, pathetic bystanders who just happened to be standing around when it did.”
“You’re wrong!” Moke said, and he pushed Xyon fiercely. Xyon staggered back, but did nothing to retaliate. Instead he just stared at Moke pityingly. Moke turned away from him and shouted down, his hands pressed flat against the clear surface surrounding them, “Mac, don’t listen to him! I know that’s not the way you are!”
“I…appreciate the support, Moke,” Calhoun said, and then a violent coughing fit seized him. His body trembled and rattled as he hacked furiously for long seconds before getting himself under control. Once he had stopped hacking, he tried to get to his feet, but was unable to find the energy to do so. So he leaned back once more, his hand on his chest, trying to find enough breath to speak. “It…it means a lot to me…”
To Moke’s surprise, the larger of the two beings below spoke to him. “Tell him…to end this foolishness, young creature. He has a cure for himself?
??for all of us. Tell him he cannot force an agreement to end war…upon one who is bent on total annihilation…”
“You speak…of yourself, of course,” said the other of the two. He was scratching furiously at himself, as if convinced all he had to do was itch hard enough and the sore on his body would simply peel off. “The Bolgar…have never wanted anything but peace…”
“Oh, of course. Which is why you’ve tried to wipe out my people, the Teuthis…”
“As you would us…!”
“We have acted only in self-defense against those who would destroy us.”
“Your actions against us have been many, bordering on the legendary…”
“Stop it!” Moke howled, his voice rising above theirs. Somewhat to Xyon’s surprise, the two of them actually silenced themselves. “Mac is dying because he’s that determined to try and bring the two of you together and make you stop fighting, and all you can do is keep on fighting! It’s like what he’s doing doesn’t mean anything to you! You don’t care about living or dying! You just care about who’s right!”
“That’s ridiculous,” rumbled the Teuthis. “I want to live. We both do.”
“The Teuthis are rarely right about anything, but this one is right about that,” said the Bolgar. He was looking with clear concern at the sores, having stopped scratching them and instead regarding them with a growing sense of dread. “I am not suicidal, as your captain apparently is. I wish to live, and I wish for my race to live.”
“Then do something about it!” Moke cried out. “Before it’s too late! Look at him!”
Calhoun was indeed a terrifying specimen to look upon. He was trying to speak, but there was such listlessness in his eyes that it was truly an awful thing to see. It looked like every move he was making filled him with pain…and, worse, that he was beyond caring about it. He seemed to have resigned himself to the notion that he was going to die, and it was this resignation in one who was such a fighter that frightened Moke the most. “Look at him!” Moke said again. “Look at what he’s doing to himself just to get you to cooperate!”