“Yes,” said Calhoun hollowly.
“Very well. If you wish, I shall bring it forthwith to science labs. They can get started on it, and Lieutenant Soleta can coordinate with them upon her return. Is that satisfactory, Captain?”
“That…would be fine.”
“Excellent. Good day to you all, then,” said Kebron. Calhoun noticed that, as opposed to his usual swaggering, lumbering walk, he now had an almost graceful movement to him.
He became aware that Selar was now standing next to him. Her normally inscrutable face looked as puzzled as his own was.
“Is it just me,” said Calhoun, “or was the taciturn, surly Kebron easier to take?”
“It is not just you,” Selar said.
“I think I’m beginning to understand why humans are the most common species on starships. Fewer bizarre and unexpected metamorphoses.”
“True. On the other hand, many of them do have a passion for baseball.”
Calhoun shuddered. But then, all business, he tapped his combadge. “Calhoun to Burgoyne.”
“Burgoyne here,” came back the voice of the ship’s second-in-command. “Is everything all right, Captain? The transporter room said that Kebron was injured. What’s his status?”
“Kebron is fine. Well…relatively speaking, at any rate,” he amended as he exchanged looks with Selar. “Burgy, contact the away team, and alert Captain Shelby as well. The Beings are on Danter, all right, and at least one of them is out to cause serious problems.”
“Aye, sir. Should we beam them all back immediately?”
Calhoun’s first instinct was indeed to bring all members of the away team back to the relative safety of the Excalibur. But then he reasoned that he had no idea what sort of situation the others might be in. They could be having very different experiences than what he and Kebron had encountered. And really, how were they to pursue any sort of fact-finding mission if they ran from the very place where the facts were going to be made available to them?
“No,” he said after a moment, the speed of his response belying the thought he’d gone to in order to reach it. “But alert them as to the situation. It’s earlier than scheduled for the check-in time, but they need to know what’s happening, and to watch their backs. We’re talking extremely capable people. If I just unilaterally take them off Danter, it would effectively be saying that I didn’t trust them to do their jobs.”
“But do you?” asked Selar quietly.
He fired a glance at her. Meantime Burgoyne’s voice came over the combadge. “Pardon, sir? I didn’t catch what Selar said…?”
“It’s nothing, Burgy,” Calhoun said pointedly. “Just let them know what’s happening. Calhoun out.”
Selar looked as though she was waiting for him to say something else. Deliberately choosing not to do so, Calhoun turned and walked out of sickbay.
He was halfway to the bridge when it was reported to him that, moments earlier, Lieutenant Soleta had disappeared.
Somewhere
SOLETA LOOKED AROUND in bewilderment and, feeling disoriented, reflexively put her arms out to either side to ward off an anticipated fall. She staggered, went down to one knee, but then quickly pulled herself together and stood once more. Then she looked around to get a better handle on her whereabouts.
She was standing on a plateau that appeared to be, as near as she could tell, the top of a mountain. But it was impossible to determine how high, for below her clouds ringed the towering peak on which she stood.
Turning in place, all she could see in all directions was a miasma of darkness. Yet the darkness itself appeared to be moving, like caliginous shifting sands flowing through a wildly distorted hourglass.
She heard a distant rushing of air. She thought that perhaps she was in some sort of huge vortex. Then it occurred to her to pull out her tricorder, and she immediately tried to get readings of where she was and what she was seeing. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to discern any conclusive findings. There were definite high energy flux readings, but she couldn’t determine anything beyond that. What kind of energy, or what its source was. Nothing.
“Hello?” she called out tentatively, and felt the fool for doing so. What sort of thing was that to say in this strange circumstance. Helloooooo. Very unscientific and most unproductive.
Beside, she knew exactly who it was that had subjected her to this, so why not come straight to it?
“Thoth,” she said. She spoke firmly and in her best no-nonsense voice. “Thoth. I am not amused by this. I demand that you return me to Danter immediately.”
“Why?”
The voice came from directly at her right shoulder, and she was so startled she almost backed up off the edge of the towering plateau. Snake-quick, Thoth reached out a hand and snagged her by the forearm, steadying her. “Careful,” he said.
She pulled her arm away from him, being careful not to do it so violently that she threw herself off-balance. “I am always careful,” she assured him archly.
He stared at her, a smile playing across his lips. “Always?” he asked.
“Yes. And whatever this place is, I insist you take me from it at once and return the two of us to Danter.”
Instead of instantly complying, he circled her slowly, never taking his eyes from her. This gave him the look of nothing so much as a large hawk circling its prey. “The casual observer might note,” he said, his voice never wavering from its quiet, patient tone, “that you are dissembling slightly. You have been known to take chances on more than one occasion, and act outside the rules. Is that not true?”
“I have no idea to what you are referring,” Soleta said. But she very much disliked the way he was looking at her.
“You forget yourself,” he said, and it might have been her imagination, but it almost seemed that the very air around her surged with power as he spoke slightly louder. “You forget to whom you are speaking. I am a god of truth, Soleta.”
“No. You are an alien Being who has assumed the form of a god of truth.”
“The two cannot be separated. I am what I am. And you are what you are. Half Vulcan, half Romulan. That puts you outside the parameters of your beloved Starfleet, does it not?”
Soleta glared at him. “This is the second time you have brought up that aspect of my lineage. I did not ask for, nor did I create, the circumstances of my birth. I see no reason that I should be penalized for it.”
“And causing the death of dozens of Romulans? Should you not be penalized for that as well?”
Soleta’s blood, normally cold, ran colder. She was certain that her face had suddenly become ashen. She turned away from him, except there he was, right in front of her again, and she spun in another direction and there he was again. “Stop. Doing. That,” she said icily.
“There are only two individuals in all this galaxy to whom you cannot lie, Soleta. One is yourself. The other is me.”
“And what have I done,” she asked, her voice drenched in sarcasm, “to warrant such attention? Why have you singled me out for his harassment?”
“Is it harassment to perceive a potential for greatness within someone and want to try and help them achieve it?” he said.
“If it involves absconding with them to some sort of transdimensional nowhere, then I would be thinking yes, it is.”
He took her by the shoulders, and his voice was soft and even a bit alluring. “From time to time,” he said with gentle insistence, “my people would come upon mortals who possessed tremendous potential. They would take them and impart the godhead to them, and the result would be some of the greatest heroes in all mortal history.”
“ ‘Impart the godhead.’ That,” she said slowly, “would be a euphemism for ‘have sex with,’ am I correct?”
“More or less.”
She pushed his hands off her shoulders. “Then it will have to be ‘less’ in my case.”
“Oh, I know your case,” he assured her. “I know your case all too well. Your soul is heavy, Soleta. You carry
the burden of overwhelming guilt upon you. Not surprising, really. You know yourself to be a child spawned of a violent act, inflicted by a member of a vicious race upon your mother, and yet part of you actually feels drawn to that race. It makes you question everything about yourself. Your own trustworthiness, your dedication to the organization you presently serve, the—”
“Shut up!”
All her equanimity and Vulcan training evaporated in that instance of overwhelming anger, and she lashed out at him, clamping her hand down upon his bare shoulder in the Vulcan nerve pinch.
It had no effect upon him, other than to provoke a mocking smile. Abruptly he grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling him toward her in a violent kiss. For half a heartbeat she actually felt herself melting against him, and then she rallied and shoved him away, her chest heaving with contained fury. “Do not touch me,” she said fiercely, “or I shall find a way to kill you. Believe me. I will.”
He smiled. “You were the proper choice. That is becoming even more clear to me.” Then he stepped back from her and put his hands out and open in front of him. “Very well. I give you my word as a higher Being that I will not force myself upon you…even though you realize that I could. I could do so and make you think it was your idea. That, however, would not be seemly for a god of wisdom and truth. And knowledge. It is knowledge that you seek. And I shall provide you with that knowledge. Not only that, but I shall provide you with what is your greatest desire.”
“And what would that be?” Her voice was laced with scorn, but she had to admit to some mild curiosity.
“Peace.”
“Peace? My greatest desire is peace?”
“Yes. Peace from the raging torment that gives your soul no rest. You deserve such peace, Soleta. You deserve not to feel perpetually torn by the dual aspects of your nature, and the guilt over activities in the past. You did not mean to kill those Romulans….”
“I know that.”
“You were tricked,” he said, and he was approaching her once more, his arms at his side, swaying in a relaxed manner. This time, however, she did not back away. “Tricked by the Romulan you knew to be your biological father. You foolishly believed that if it was possible to find redemption in such a creature, that it could lead to your own redemption as well. If he had hidden depths of righteousness, then you might be more of a righteous female than you credited yourself. Instead he turned out to be a traitor, to you and to his people. And since that time, your own concerns over your trustworthiness have haunted you. Tell me, Soleta…how loud are the screams of the Romulans in your dreams when you dwell upon the deaths you caused?”
She wanted to make some sort of snide reply. She wanted to tell him it was none of his damned business. She even wanted to run away. Instead, she heard herself admit the truth: “Very loud. And every night. Every night…I hear their screams.” Her voice was thick with that most insidious of traits, emotion, but she wasn’t dwelling on that. Instead all the sleepless nights she had spent, from that day to this, were surging within her. “When the building blew up, thanks to the bomb I set off through my father’s trickery. I should have known…should have realized…”
“But you could not have.”
“But I should have.”
“Would you like to ease that suffering? Your soulsickness? If only for a while?”
She shook her head, even as she said, “Yes.”
He raised his hand, and there was something in it. It appeared to be glowing. Overcome by curiosity, she leaned forward to get a better look at it.
It was the oddest thing she had ever seen. It seemed to be some sort of gelatinous mass, but it was shimmering gold. It was attached to a small branch, giving it the appearance of something that had been plucked from a tree or a bush. It throbbed and pulsed, almost as if it was alive, as it lay there in his palm. He reached over with his other hand and lifted it up. By all rights, it looked as if it should just fall apart, losing all its cohesion. Yet it stayed together, giving it the curious look of something that was both solid and liquid at the same time, like mercury.
And she felt a warmth radiating from it. That was the eeriest thing of all.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You already know.”
The strange thing was, she did. “Ambrosia.”
“Yes.”
Automatically, operating entirely on reflex, she brought her tricorder around and scanned it. The readings surprised her. It registered as a simple collection of proteins. There was nothing remotely toxic about it, nothing to explain the feeling of…of total peace she derived just from looking at it.
“That sensation you feel,” he said as if reading her mind—which certainly seemed to be within the parameters of his abilities—“is a sensation of your wounds being cleansed by an inner light.”
“Ah. Is that what that feels like.”
“You attempt to jest, but you know in your heart that I am right. It washes over you, as nurturing as a gentle surf. As much as you may deny it, truly you welcome it. You know that to be the case.”
“Let us say…” She stopped and cleared her throat, because it suddenly felt clogged. “Let us say that it is true. Not that it is, but just for sake of argument…”
“Very well,” he said, sounding generous. “For sake of argument.”
“Then what would you suggest. That I consume this unknown substance?”
“That is exactly correct. Consume as much or as little of it as you desire.”
“You must truly think I am deranged.”
“No. I truly think you are desperate. It is said that most creatures live lives of quiet desperation, but your desperation is not quiet at all. It cries out to me for surcease, and I can provide it if you will let me.”
“Why would I want to do that.”
“Because,” he said, and he seemed genuinely sad, “the truth is…you’ve nothing to lose.”
She so very, very much wanted to disagree with the assessment. She wanted to take the ambrosia and throw it in his face. She wanted to further break her Vulcan training and laugh at him, or shout at him, or in some way loudly proclaim that he didn’t have the faintest idea of what the hell he was talking about. Yet she found herself picking up the ambrosia just the same, and looking at it, and seeing in it a salvation she hadn’t even thought possible.
And then she was raising it to her lips, even as her mind screamed at her that this was totally insane, and he must be doing it to her somehow, must be inside her and manipulating her in ways previously thought impossible, but somehow none of it seemed to matter because the temptation to still the voices that cried out within her was just too overwhelming, and besides, it was in the name of science. What scientist worth her salt wasn’t willing to take a chance, to lay herself on the line at some point in her life, in the spirit of discovery?
She bit into the ambrosia, and her first thought was disappointment, because the taste was nothing special, faintly honeylike. Nor did it seem to be having any effect on her at all. She chewed it a couple of times and swallowed, and still there was nothing untoward about it. After all that. After that incredible “sales pitch,” after all that buildup, she felt no different….
Then she noticed that there was some sort of warmth starting to build in her chest. It was like a small ball of heat, coming together in her solar plexus, and then it started to radiate outward. Her hands and feet were tingling, and she was beginning to get light-headed. She gasped and staggered, and then she felt as if something was lifting her up. It was as he had said before, about waves and water, and she felt caught up in a surf, riding a crest of a massive wave that was carrying her higher and higher. She laughed and cried and shrieked all at once, and the voices of the Romulans, of her inner doubts, of everything that had gnawed at her and eaten away at her was gone for the first time in ages. There was just her, there was Soleta, and she was happy with being Soleta, and more, she was happy with Thoth for giving her this, happy with the Beings for exis
ting, for providing her with this miraculous substance, and she knew that she would do anything, just anything that was required in order to make sure that she would never, ever have to stop feeling this way again.
And somewhere in the far reaches of her consciousness, she knew that Thoth was laughing, but that was all right, because so was she….
Trident/Excalibur
i.
SHELBY COULDN’T QUITE BELIEVE that she had heard Mick Gold properly. “The Tholians? Are you sure?”
He nodded grimly, half-turning in his chair at ops. “No question. I recognize the energy signature of their ships a mile off. It’s them.”
“Perfect.” Seated in her command chair on the bridge, Shelby was starting to wonder if there was anything about this day that could remotely go right. “Raise the Excal for me.”
“They’re hailing us, Captain.”
“Figures. Put them on screen.”
Moments later the concerned face of Burgoyne appeared on the screen. “I will give you the courtesy, Captain, of assuming that you’ve come to the same conclusion as we?”
“That the Tholians will be here at any moment?”
S/he nodded. “An imminent Tholian arrival is never good news.”
“Believe me, Burgy, I know that all too well,” she said grimly. “I suggest a three-way conversation with the Tholians as soon as they arrive.”
“Agreed. I’ll follow your lead, if it’s all the same to you, since you are the ranking officer.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence. Where’s Mac?”
“He just beamed down to the surface. Soleta’s gone missing and he’s going down to confront Lodec about it.”
She felt her blood rushing to her temples, which was not an uncommon sensation for her. “He’s doing what?”
“Going down to confront Lodec over Soleta’s disappearance.”
“What type of security team does he have with him.”