Missing in Action

“Ankar?” she said with a slightly arched brow. “Is there a problem?”

  “A problem!” he shouted as he approached her, and then fought to lower his voice when she scoldingly put a finger to her lips. “A problem? We’re under attack, in case you didn’t notice!”

  “Of course I noticed,” she replied easily, apparently unperturbed. There were still explosions, but the sounds seemed to be coming from a greater distance…moving away from them like a passing thunderstorm, albeit leaving havoc in its wake. “I helped make it possible,” she added with a touch of pride.

  He stepped closer toward her, his eyes wide. “You…?”

  “Just a tidy little computer virus that I was able to introduce into your system. Don’t worry. With the computers smashed by this point, it’s not as if it’s going to spread to anything else.”

  “But this wasn’t the plan!”

  “It wasn’t?” She looked at him with a remarkably innocent expression, as if unable to fathom what he could possibly be upset about.

  “You—!” Ankar fought to control himself. It shouldn’t have been that difficult. He was, after all, Si Cwan’s chief interrogator/torturer. So he was long accustomed to being able to detach his mind, especially while engaging in some of his more repulsive activities. Then again, such sadistic pursuits were usually pursued in relative peace, the only disturbing aspect being the screams of his subjects. Ankar didn’t normally have to contend with the damned ceiling crashing down around him. “You,” he continued with effort, “swore to me that your people would provide protection for New Thallon in the event of war. That you and other operatives would work from within to have Si Cwan ousted or, even better, executed. That I would then be put in charge to guide New Thallon to a future more befitting a conquering race!”

  “Hmm. Yes, that does sound like an excellent plan,” Kalinda said agreeably, seemingly oblivious of the pandemonium around her. She extended her legs like a stretching cat and then stood. “A few problems with it, though…and they’re problems I suppose you couldn’t possibly have foreseen.”

  “What problems?!” He staggered slightly as another explosion rocked the palace.

  “Well, first, as it turns out…there aren’t actually any other ‘operatives.’ There’s just me. Granted, yes, others of my people are around, but not here on New Thallon. They’re back at Priatia. And there’s a second prob—” Her eyes went wide and she looked over Ankar’s shoulder. “Si Cwan! My brother, what are you doing here?”

  Ankar immediately turned to see what she was looking at. He barely had time to register that there was no one standing in the doorway, and suddenly a chunk of debris bounced off the side of his head and sent him to his knees. His mind swimming, he barely had time to process the realization that the debris had not come from overhead, but from the side and from the general direction of Kalinda. A moment more, then, to comprehend that Kalinda had, in fact, thrown it at him.

  By that point he was on his knees, leaning forward with one hand on the floor, trying to stop the dizziness and wave of nausea. He looked up just in time to see Kalinda standing over him with an even larger piece of debris, holding it high over her head, a look of utter dispassion on her face.

  “The second problem,” she said, sounding almost bored, “is that having you as an ally smoothed the process…but now presents a potential threat. We can’t have that.”

  Ankar’s last sight was the huge piece of rubble swinging down toward his head, and his last thought before his skull was crushed was a common profanity that was—as it so happened—the last thought that crossed many people’s minds in the end.

  iv.

  Robin Lefler had been working in her office when the bombardment began.

  She had been composing a detailed report to Starfleet of the current situation, and hated the fact that it was filled with nothing but negativity and depressing assessments.

  The most difficult moment came when she had a real-time video conference with a newly minted Starfleet admiral, one Henri L’Ecole, with a mild French accent, close-cropped silver hair, and a steely gaze that—in her younger years—she would have found attractive, but now merely found slightly unnerving. L’Ecole had just been designated Lefler’s contact person in the Office of Planetary Affairs, and he was still bringing himself up to speed. She could see him checking through files even as she laid out for him the disintegration of the Thallonian Protectorate. He had cut her short several times, seemingly impatient with the point-by-point manner in which she was reporting things. L’Ecole seemed to have little patience for details.

  Finally he said, in apparent exasperation, “So let me summarize this, Lefler. The Protectorate is coming apart, you were unable to do anything to keep it together, and your involvement and advice has been marginalized to the point where you don’t really need to be there at all. True or false?”

  “Admiral, I would hardly characterize that as a—”

  “True,” he said again, “or false?”

  She blew air impatiently between her lips. “On some level…true.”

  “Then may I ask what you’re still doing there?” he demanded. “Certainly the time and resources Starfleet invested in training you would be better served if you were in some location where your presence could actually make a difference.”

  “Thank you for your clinical assessment of the situation, Admiral,” Lefler said coldly, “but if it’s all the same to you, I’m not anxious to run out on my husband just yet.”

  “Husband?” L’Ecole said in bewilderment. “Who’s your—?” He looked down and off to the side, obviously checking over her personnel file. He blinked owlishly upon seeing information, the specifics of which Lefler could readily guess. “Ah. You are married to Prime Minister Cwan.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He frowned. “Doesn’t that pose something of a conflict of interest?”

  “Your predecessor did not seem to feel it did.”

  “Yes, and the fact that he’s gone and I’m here might give you some hint of where Starfleet’s thinking on this matter might be.”

  “Since you were unaware of it until just now, Admiral, I would be inclined to believe that Starfleet wasn’t thinking much about it one way or the other.”

  He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment. “A valid point,” he conceded. “May I ask you how your relations with your husband currently stand?”

  “Of course. May I ask you how things are with your wife?”

  “That’s out of line, Lieutenant Commander,” he said stiffly.

  “You see what I mean, then, Admiral.”

  “My marital relations have nothing to do with my job.”

  “Nor do mine,” Lefler shot back.

  “Lieutenant Commander,” L’Ecole said, “I’m going to go on the assumption that you’re saying that out of a determination to respect your marriage’s privacy…which I can at least understand if not wholly condone. Because if you’re saying that and truly believe it to be the case, then I would have to conclude that you’re delusional.”

  “Believe what you wish, Admiral.”

  “Thank you for allowing me t—”

  The image abruptly crackled, broke down, and vanished from view. Lefler leaned forward in confusion, wondering for a moment if the admiral had broken the connection, and then deciding it unlikely. So what had done so? What could possibly be interfering with—

  That was when the bombing started.

  From the nature of the impact and the accompanying sounds, Lefler immediately identified the source as pulse bombs. She considered running, but she had no idea where to run to, so she did the only thing she could think of: She dove under her desk. There she huddled, curled up into a ball, head tucked forward as far as it would go while she brought her arms up and over to provide her what little protection they could. The ground continued to rock under her, and she heard debris falling from overhead and around her. The desk shuddered under the impact, but did not shatter. She knew it was a remarkably sturdy
piece of furniture, but she was extremely impressed to see the pounding it was capable of withstanding.

  She knew without a second thought that the source of the bombing had to be Fhermus and his allies. Her mind racing, she came to the same conclusions that Si Cwan was arriving at elsewhere in the building: that Fhermus was executing a plan long in preparation. It gave the civil war a certain inevitability, which she found very disheartening. Had they all been wasting their time in the circle dance of the Protectorate? She hated to think it was the case, but was hard-pressed to come to any other conclusion.

  She felt the impacts beginning to lessen, the volleys easing up. From all around, up and down the hallways, she was able to hear the cries for help from various people in the place. Unwilling to simply leave people to their fates, Robin left the safety of her desk and ran out of her office into the corridors.

  She was immediately relieved that she did. There were people—servants, retainers, a couple of dazed warlords with bleeding heads—all of whom needed attention. Robin couldn’t help but wonder if some higher power was watching out for her, because as she attended to the frightened and wounded all around her, debris continued to fall intermittently to her right and left, in front and behind her, but she remained miraculously unscathed.

  And every person she encountered, she asked the same thing: “Where’s Si Cwan? Have you seen Si Cwan?” She received a variety of mixed responses. People would shake their heads or mumble something about having seen him when the attack began but they had since lost track of him. A couple stared at her blankly and said, “Who?,” and she had a feeling those individuals had been concussed and were going to need the most immediate attention.

  It was some minutes before she realized that the bombardment had ceased altogether. There were any number of reasons that might be the case. Perhaps the planetary defense systems had finally come to life, although she couldn’t begin to imagine what could have caused them to fail. Plus there were vessels in orbit that had transported the warlords to New Thallon in the first place. Upon realizing that New Thallon was under attack, they would have in turn attacked the planet’s assailants and driven them away.

  Or maybe the attackers had just run out of bombs.

  Whatever the reason, the bombing had stopped, and Robin was just happy to be alive. Unfortunately, as she made her way through the palace—her heart sinking as she surveyed the damage—her fear over Si Cwan’s status continued to spiral upwards.

  She cut down the main hallway, stepping over debris, and headed for Kalinda’s room, reasoning that Si Cwan would assume that Robin could take care of herself but that his sister might be in dire straits. She didn’t let herself feel depressed over her assessment of Si Cwan’s priorities. A wife was a wife, but Si Cwan had sacrificed far too much in his life to assure Kalinda’s safety, and there was no reason to think that his concerns would change now.

  She got to Kalinda’s chambers. The doors were closed tight. Banging on them as loudly as she could, Robin shouted, “Kally! Are you in there? Can you hear me? Are you all right? Kalinda! It’s Robin!”

  The door suddenly opened and Robin was stunned to see Si Cwan standing there, grim-faced. A breath of relief practically exploded from her as she said, “Cwan!”

  In response, Si Cwan enfolded her in his powerful arms and whispered, “Thank the gods you’re all right. I was about to come looking for you. I had to check on Kally…”

  She hated to admit how good it felt to have her head nestling against his powerful chest. “I know, I know. I understand. I would have done the same thing. It’s all right…”

  “No. It’s not all right.” He turned slightly so that she could see past him, and she half-expected to see Kalinda lying there in a puddle of her own blood.

  But Kalinda looked just fine. She was seated on the edge of her bed, and she looked to be in a daze. Robin didn’t blame her. After everything the girl had been through recently, this latest shock might well have sent her into mental overload. Then Robin realized that Kalinda was looking down at something, and an instant later realized what it was.

  Ankar’s body was lying there, half his head crushed in, a massive pool of his blood coalescing under it.

  Robin gasped. God knew that Ankar wasn’t her favorite individual. As Si Cwan’s aide-de-camp, he was frequently patronizing to her. She had been even more horrified to discover that Ankar was an experienced practitioner of barbaric torture procedures. It had been he who had brutalized Xyon, the son of Mackenzie Calhoun, and would have continued to do so had Robin not risked everything to intervene.

  But as much as Ankar repulsed her, she took no joy in seeing him brought low by the cowardly assault that the palace had been subjected to.

  “He saved Kalinda,” said Si Cwan. “He died saving her life.”

  “Yes,” Kalinda said with a distant, hollow tone. “He heard me screaming, and…and came in here…he pushed me out of the way when he saw debris falling…it was…”

  “Heroic.” Si Cwan nodded, his chin stiff. “He died a hero to the House of Cwan. His light will never be forgotten.”

  “No,” Robin echoed him. “Never be forgotten.”

  Her focus, however, was on Kalinda rather than Ankar’s corpse, and Kalinda seemed to know it. She met Robin’s gaze levelly. Robin couldn’t be sure, but she thought there was a touch of defiance there…as if daring her to make the observation that this was another dead body discovered in Kalinda’s presence during a remarkably short period of time.

  She could have sworn that Kalinda knew exactly what was going through her mind. And she could also have sworn that Kalinda’s response was a very slight upturn of the edges of her mouth, as if the entire business was fraught with amusement.

  That was the moment that Robin knew.

  The problem was…she didn’t know what she knew. She knew something. But she wasn’t sure what. What she did know was that it was tremendously important, it involved Kalinda in ways that Si Cwan would not believe, and none of it was going to end well.

  U.S.S. Excalibur

  Tania Tobias is in a world of her own.

  It is a pleasant world, warm and happy. It is not a world of starships, of weapons and shields, not one of violence and scrabbling to stay alive in a hostile and unforgiving environment.

  No, it is a place where she floats and smiles as her lover looks down at her and smiles and assures her that everything is going to be all right. He invites her to see the galaxy as he does. She opens herself to him in every way imaginable, and he enters every part of her. She does indeed begin to see the galaxy as he does. For half a heartbeat that seems to take a lifetime, she knows where every star is, and where she is in relation to every star. It is as if a door in her mind that she didn’t even know was there has been unlocked and thrown wide.

  And then…things happen.

  She is unable to understand all of them, and she feels as if there are now even more doors, and as each one swings open it does so with a deafening slamming noise, until she feels completely overwhelmed. She sees the stars beginning to spiral around her, descending down a vast funnel, and she reaches out, trying to catch as many of them in her hand as she can in order to put them back where they were.

  Then they’re gone, all of them gone, along with her lover, and she is floating there all by herself, all alone.

  She has no idea how long she remains that way. But then, after an infinity of time that passes in far less than that, she sees something new.

  Something large.

  Something heading her way.

  It is tentative at first, uncertain of what to expect. It draws closer and closer still, and it begins to have form and substance.

  All is quiet.

  So quiet.

  It is like a mouse hoping to avoid the attention of the cat; there is nothing but silence.

  Ultimately, it makes no difference.

  “It sees us.”

  Mackenzie Calhoun was never a big fan of hiding. The problem with hidin
g is that it was almost inevitably a plan “A” with no plan “B.” Plan A was “Don’t get found.” If that failed, there pretty much wasn’t anything else aside from “Damn. They found us. We’re in trouble now.”

  Unfortunately, in this case, he didn’t feel as if he had a lot of options.

  So instead Mackenzie Calhoun, leader of men and women, was leading them in silent vigil as they watched their situation go from somewhat bad to staggeringly worse.

  The approaching ship was the incarnation of “worst-case scenario,” in that it was identical to the one within which they were currently hiding. As near as they could determine, it was smaller, although that just might be a trick of perspective. But it was unquestionably made by the same individuals who had fired upon them and then consigned them to this—this wherever-they-were. Based on that, it didn’t seem terribly likely that they were going to be especially happy to see the Excalibur.

  Nor was Calhoun sanguine over their chances in a head-to-head battle. For all he knew, their weapons would prove completely impotent against it.

  The ship continued on its path, and now they could see that it was no trick of perspective. Not only was it smaller, but it was considerably smaller. Even so, it was still much larger than the Excalibur. Bigger even than a Borg cube, as near as Calhoun could tell.

  Fortunately the space in their hiding place was vast, and it was entirely possible for the newcomer to probe around within and never encounter them. That was certainly what everyone there was hoping for.

  “Morgan,” he said softly, “sensors may be useless, but can you project that ship’s likely heading?”

  Morgan gave a very slight nod. Her eyebrows flickered for a moment, and then she said, “If it doesn’t change direction, it will continue on a course of 216 mark 7, and not come within five hundred thousand klicks of us.”

  “Good.”

  “Of course,” she continued, “if they are proceeding in some sort of search pattern, then they could change course without the slightest warning and be practically down our throats in no time.”