Small animals ran past her, pausing momentarily to look up at her in curiosity. A rabbit sniffed at her feet, a robin landed on her shoulder. And Shelby couldn’t help but notice how quiet they all were. Oh, the rabbit, sure, naturally that was quiet. How much noise do rabbits make, as a rule? But there was no flutter of the robin’s wings, no chirping as it studied her. Not only that, but she now began to notice that, although the wind was steadily blowing the branches, the leaves were not rustling. She wondered for a moment if she was going deaf.
A hand gently touched her shoulder. She turned and gasped, and didn’t hear herself do so.
Calhoun was standing there with a smile on his face.
She smacked him across the face as hard as she could. It made no noise.
“How dare you!” she choked out. “How dare you go and get yourself killed and leave me alone! You had no business doing that, Mac, no business at all!”
She noticed, almost as an afterthought, that he was naked. An instant later, so was she. She gave that no further consideration.
“No business?” Calhoun laughed lightly at that. “Eppy, it’s not as if I wanted to be a martyr …”
“Yes, it is! That’s exactly what you wanted, Mac. It’s what you’ve always wanted. Even when you were a teenager back on Xenex, running around, waving a sword and howling battle cries and fighting for your people, it was never about them! It was about you trying to be a martyr.”
“How would you know that, Eppy? You weren’t there.”
“I didn’t have to be, Mac. I know you better than you do yourself.”
He turned and walked away from her. Despite the frustration she was feeling, despite all the anger, she still had to admit to herself that—damn, he had a fine backside. Then she pushed those thoughts as far away as her subconscious mind would allow them to go. “Well?” she called after him. “Aren’t you going to deny it?”
He stopped and faced her. “Why should I? If you know me so well, then it’s really pretty pointless to deny it.”
“But … but I was expecting you to.”
“Then I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
She growled in frustration at that. “Now you’re just being arbitrary, Mac! Saying and doing things like this just to frustrate me.”
“I guess I don’t have a hope of fooling you,” he admitted, looking downcast. But then that familiar smirk played across his lips, and at that point she was torn between an urge to kiss him and an urge to kill him. “If it’s a vote, I vote for kiss,” he said, reminding her in a rather unsubtle manner that her thoughts were open to him.
Shelby put her hands on her hips and gave him her patented Idon’t-suffer-fools-gladly look. It had, unsurprisingly, no visible effect on him. Instead, he said to her, “All right, Eppy. Let’s allow for the possibility that you know me better than I know myself. On that basis, I should know you better than you know yourself. Does that sound fair?”
He dove into the water, which surprised Shelby, since they hadn’t been standing at the edge of a lake a moment before. But sure enough, there it was, big as life, and Calhoun was paddling around in it with abandon. She tried to call to him, but he didn’t seem to hear her. With an annoyed sigh, she clambered into the water and started swimming. She noticed that the water felt neither hot nor cold. Curiouser and curiouser.
“I said,” Calhoun called to her as she drew nearer, “does that sound—?”
“Fair, yes, yes, I know what you said.” She shrugged under the water as she started to tread in place. She was impressing herself. Normally she wasn’t that strong a swimmer, but this time she was keeping herself afloat effortlessly. “I suppose that sounds fair, yes, but I don’t know if it’s accurate.”
“Let’s say that it is,” he told her. “And, that being the case, let’s further say that you, Eppy, don’t know what you want.”
“And you do, I suppose.”
“I absolutely do, yes.”
“Well? Don’t keep me waiting. You have all the answers.”
“All right,” Calhoun said amiably. “What you want is to be me, in the worst way. And you are.”
“Thanks a lot. I don’t have to listen to this,” she said, and she started to swim away. Yet somehow he was suddenly ahead of her. She wondered how the hell he’d managed that.
“I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to, “ he said. “After all, you’re the one who wanted to discuss this with me.”
“Me? Want to discuss my concerns with you? In your dreams.”
“In yours, actually,” Calhoun said with a laugh.
She continued to float in place. “What do you mean? ‘In the worst way.’ ”
“Eppy … you might not have liked my style. You might not have liked the way I conducted myself, or the tone I set for the ship. You might not have liked the way I played fast and loose with the rules.”
“Actually, the thing I disliked the most was the way you called me ‘Eppy.’ ”
“The point is, Eppy,” he said, as she knew he would, “the thing you did like was that I got things done. You didn’t agree with the way I did it, but I did it all the same. And now, here you are, and you want to get things done …”
“I have. And I will.”
“I believe you. But in the meantime, the Makkusians are going to get into a war that could end up depopulating their world as surely as the bugs you destroyed would have done. You want to stop it.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Same thing.”
“Not to me,” he said sharply. “ ‘Can’t’ means being faced with something so overwhelming that no amount of determination or willpower is going to accomplish the task at hand. ‘Won’t’ is a matter of choice, short for ‘will not.’ ” It’s a conscious decision not to accomplish something. That’s what you’re doing here.”
“Don’t talk to me about what I’m doing! You’re dead, and I’m …” She hesitated.
“Foundering?” he inquired.
For a moment her concentration started to sway, and she sank under the water. With a quick kick of her powerful legs, she bobbed to the top again. “Foundering?” he asked again as if she hadn’t momentarily disappeared.
“Doing fine, thanks.”
“I disagree. You think your crew despises you, and maybe some of them do. That’s an occupational hazard. But nobody becomes a captain to be loved. You do it in order to get things done.”
“And you get them done any way you can?” she asked sarcastically. “The ends justify the means?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“No, you don’t. Neither does your first officer, or the rest of your command crew. But you know what the difference between you is?”
“What?”
“You want to believe it. You just aren’t ready to.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to offer me? Mac … you think you know me, but you don’t know me at all.”
He swam toward her then. She wanted to move back in the water, angle away from him, but she remained right where she was.
He put his arms around her, and she felt as if she was melting against him. Still she felt no heat, no cold, no anything, but the hardness of his muscles pressing against her was unmistakable.
“I know you so well,” he said, “that I knew you’d deny it. Just as I also know that you’re going to kiss me now.”
“You really are crazy, you know that?” she said, and then her lips were against his, her tongue seeking his out. They were sinking beneath the water, and she didn’t care in the least. The water rippled around them as they drifted down, down, and she knew at that point that everything he’d said was absolutely right, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
Suddenly there was a high-pitched tone, rather like a comm link.
The lake, and Calhoun, and the entire moment dissolved around her. She sat up, blinking away the sleep from her eyes, and the
beep sounded again. “Lights to half,” she said groggily, and the lights of her cabin obediently came partway up. The beeping continued, waiting for acknowledgment. “Shelby here, go ahead.”
“Captain, we’re ten hours out from Nimbus,” came the voice of Lieutenant Carroll, the special services officer who worked the nightside. “Technically, you’re not on shift yet, but Starfleet wanted to know if we could arrive sooner than the scheduled ETA, since some of the ceremonies have been moved around. Naturally, I had to check with—”
“Turn us around.” The words were out of her mouth before she knew she was going to say them. Once she had, however, she felt relieved.
Carroll, on the other hand, sounded completely confused. “I’m sorry, Captain, did you say—?”
“Turn us around, Mr. Carroll. Take us back to Makkus, warp nine.”
“Warp nine, Captain?”
“Yes, Mr. Carroll. Warp nine.”
“Captain, with all due re—”
“Mr. Carroll, so help me, if you’re about to say, ‘with all due respect,’ I’m going to reach through this comm link and smack you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Captain,” said Carroll, sounding totally cowed. “But I … I will have to inform—”
“Inform Starfleet. Inform the Romulans if it suits your fancy, but carry out my order, and I mean yesterday. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Captain.”
Whistling, Shelby proceeded to get dressed, and as she did so, she mentally started counting. She was just pulling on her boots when a chime came from her door. “Come,” she said.
Garbeck entered, looking as if she’d been shot out of a cannon.
“Ninety-three,” said Shelby.
That stopped Garbeck in her tracks. “Pardon?”
“Seconds. It took you ninety-three seconds to get down here. I’m surprised. I was expecting you to take under a minute.”
“Captain …” she began, very formally.
“Ah, we’re back to ‘Captain,’ are we? Two days ago, it was ‘Elizabeth.’ ”
“Captain, I was just informed by Lieutenant Carroll—”
“That I ordered us to return to Makkus. Yes, that’s correct. You should be pleased, Number One. It came as a result of your advice.”
Garbeck paled slightly. “My advice, Captain?”
“Yes. You told me I should get some rest. It took me another day or so to give your advice some practical application, but once I did, things became a good deal clearer.”
“Captain … Captain, I …”
Shelby was beginning to feel better and better about herself. “It’s nice to hear that you’ve got the hang of my rank, Number One.”
“We’re expected at Nimbus!”
“One of the first rules of command, Number One, is that you should always do the unexpected. If the choice I’m being given is to appear on a ceremonial basis at Nimbus, or have a chance to accomplish something back at Makkus, then I’m going to opt for the latter.”
“Except that the Makkus situation is no longer an option for you, Captain. You said it yourself: They’re not interested in having a negotiating team sent in.”
“I’m not going to go back and negotiate. I’m going to go back and talk some sense into both of them. I’m going to force them to listen to reason, to make the Corinderians understand that you don’t go around trying to obliterate your neighbors, and I’m going to make the Makkusians understand that endeavoring to return the favor isn’t going to improve matters.”
“Except that going in with all phasers blasting isn’t going to improve matters, either.”
“I’m not going to go in with all of them blasting, Number One. Perhaps one or two of them if necessary, but not all. Oh, and have Tulley meet me down in engineering. I have something I need Dunn and her to work on, and it’s going to have to be done fairly quickly.”
Garbeck looked as if there were a thousand different things she wanted to say, but she couldn’t bring herself to say any of them. Finally, simply shaking her head, she started for the door.
Very softly, in as neutral a tone as she could muster, Shelby said, “I guess you’re going to have an interesting report for Admiral Jellico, aren’t you?”
Garbeck let out a low moan and turned back to Shelby. There was no anger in her eyes, but, instead, only a distant sadness. “Why would I do that, Captain? What possible purpose could it serve?”
“Well, isn’t that what you’re expected to do?”
“I hear tell that one of the first rules of command is to do the unexpected.”
The answer surprised Shelby, although, upon reflection, she wasn’t entirely sure why it had. “Are you angling for command, Garbeck?”
“When you were in my position, weren’t you?”
Even more quietly than before, so quiet that it was barely above a whisper, Shelby asked, “Of this ship, perhaps?”
Garbeck sniffed disdainfully. “This ship? No.”
“Something wrong with this ship, Number One?”
“Yes,” Garbeck replied. “It’s captained by someone with whom I suspect I disagree on a number of major principles. However, I want a career that I can be proud of, and I’ll be damned if the way I get my first command is by stepping over the body of my C.O., whether that body deserves to be stepped over or not.”
Shelby did nothing to hide her surprise. “Garbeck, every so often, you surprise me.”
“You surprise me as well, Captain.”
“How so?”
“It took you sixty-two hours to turn us around. I’d thought you’d have us heading back within ten.” And she walked out of the room.
CALHOUN
CALHOUN COULD SCARCELY BELIEVE IT.
He had been walking here, there, and everywhere throughout the area whenever he had moments free, trying to trace what direction he had come from. Seeking out, with what seemed growing futility, the crash site where his shuttle was piled up. And now he’d found it … thanks to the guidance of a small boy who had had no clue at all that Calhoun was looking for it. In short, thanks to Moke, he had lucked onto what he’d been searching for all this time.
“This way, Calhoun! Now that way, Calhoun!” Moke had been barking orders as Calhoun steered the sailskipper, trying to keep up with the vagaries of the wind while, at the same time, adhering to the rapid-fire directions Moke shouted out to him. Every time he’d angle the sailskipper this way or that way, Moke would howl with laughter. It was nice to see the boy enjoying himself.
And it forced him to dwell, however briefly—and unwillingly—on all the years he had missed in the growth of his own son, Xyon. The son that he had rediscovered, only to lose him shortly thereafter.
He chided himself mentally. There was simply no point to berating himself or dwelling in “might-have-beens.” Such second-guessing had never been his style, and he certainly wasn’t about to start now. Things were what they were, and second-guessing himself wasn’t any way to live his life. He’d made his decisions, and he had lived with them.
Yet here was this boy … this boy …
He could make up for Xyon … maybe just a little … if he …
If he what? Stayed? Denied what he was?
Except … what was he, really? Was he a Starfleet captain? Or was that merely a crafted façade that covered the fact that this life, wild and free and open, suited him far more? There was Rheela, whom he knew was attracted to him, and the boy, Moke … well, he was just hungry for a father figure. Any father figure, it seemed, which really wasn’t all that flattering to Calhoun. Even so, what else could one expect of a child so young and desperate for attention?
Nevertheless, the sensation of the bridge beneath his feet, the hissing of the door from the captain’s ready room when he strode out to his post, the array of stars that hurtled by a starship cruising the spaceways …
And Shelby. Elizabeth Paula Shelby. At night, when his keen hearing told him that Rheela was right down the hall, breathing steadily and very likely amenable to wh
atever he might fancy, there would be Shelby in his mind’s eye. If Xyon was the son who had slipped through his fingers, so, too, had Shelby been the fiancée who had eluded him. Or he had eluded her. It had been more of a mutual elusiveness, it seemed, neither of them ready, neither of them willing to give of themselves in the way that marriage truly required.
But she haunted his waking moments, even as the relative simplicity of life on Yakaba called to him.
“What’s that?”
Moke was pointing ahead of them, pointing up at a ridge at the top of a small bluff. Calhoun, stirred from his reverie even as he automatically guided the sailskipper with ease, looked where Moke was indicating.
He nearly fell off the sailskipper.
He recognized the debris almost immediately, even as he guided the sailskipper over toward it. “What is it, Mac?” Moke asked again, not having received an answer.
“It’s … I’m not sure,” Calhoun said quickly. He glided the sailskipper over to the foot of the bluff and hopped off it. “I’m … going to check it out.”
“Let me come with y—”
Calhoun wasn’t listening to him. Instead, he clambered up the side, easily finding toeholds and handholds on the rocky surface. “Mac, wait!” called Moke, huffing as he tried to follow Calhoun’s lead, but failed. The starship captain was simply too fast.
Calhoun reached the summit and hauled himself up. He dusted off his trouser legs as he stood and studied the crash site. The top of the bluff went off for some six hundred feet. Even so, it had been nothing short of miraculous that Calhoun had managed to prevent the vehicle from tumbling to the edge of the ridge and over. It was even more miraculous that Calhoun was alive at all, because now that he was there, he could see the horrendous amount of damage that had been inflicted upon the noble conveyance. Pieces of various sizes were spread behind and around it, many of them half-buried in the hardened sand all around. Even someone who was familiar with such a vehicle would be hard pressed to figure out what in the world the thing had been previously. At this point, it looked like the remains of an undersized house. The nacelles, along with an entire side of the vessel, had been torn away in the crash. Pieces of shipboard equipment were strewn all over the place. The shipboard control console was in one piece. It had been bent in half, and the controls themselves were smashed, but it was in one piece.