“Absolutely,” Calhoun said. And as he shook Thul’s hand, his ring implanted a transponder directly into Thul’s palm. Calhoun was taking no chances; the last thing he needed was for Thul to depart during the night, leaving Calhoun high and dry.
The next thing Calhoun knew, Vara Syndra was hanging on his arm. “Come along, Mackenzie,” she whispered softly in his ear. “Let me take you to your…room…”
At which point every hormone in his body completely stopped paying any attention whatsoever to whatever it was that Thul wanted to do or had in mind. Without hesitation he followed Vara out the door.
The moment they were in the hallway, out of sight of Thul, she began to kiss Calhoun. He did nothing to stop her. It was doubtful he could have done anything to stop her. He returned the kisses with equal passion, and hungrily locking lips with one another, they sidled down the hallway to the room that had been reserved for Calhoun. They eased in through the door, which obediently slid shut behind him.
It was a perfectly serviceable room, although nowhere near as opulent as Thul’s. Somehow, though, opulence was not at the top of Calhoun’s concerns at that particular moment. All he was concerned about was whether or not the place had a bed. Actually, it didn’t matter all that much. The odds were sensational that the room had, at the very least, a floor, and the way he was feeling, that was all that he was going to need. But as luck would have it, there was indeed a bed there, large enough for an entire security team to wrestle with Vara, were such needed.
He ran his hands along the length of her body as they tumbled onto the bed, kissed her hungrily. Then he stopped long enough to look her in the eyes and say, “Why? Why me?”
She smiled at him. “Why not you? Don’t you deserve it? Aren’t you brave and heroic? Aren’t you,” and she ran her hands across his chest, “aren’t you remarkably handsome?”
“And it doesn’t have to mean more than that?”
“Of course not. Do you think it has to?” She actually seemed amused by the notion.
“No. No, it doesn’t.” He kissed her again, and his entire body was screaming at him to just get on with it already, she was wearing body paint and she was ready, willing and eager, how long should this possibly take. She pulled his shirt over his head. Naked from the waist up, he pressed against her. He groaned as she ran her tongue under the line of his chin, and he whispered her name…
“What’s an ‘Eppy’?” she asked.
He stopped, stared at her. “What?”
“‘Eppy.’Just now.” There was laughter twinkling in her eyes. “You said, ‘Eppy.’”
“I…said I was…happy. I whispered the word ‘happy.’”
“Oh. Okay.” She shook her head and chuckled once more. “Thul said you would be an interesting one. He had no idea, though, did he?”
“Thul. You’re…here because Thul told you to be here,” Calhoun said slowly.
“I’m here because I want to be here,” Vara Syndra said firmly. “I’m here for my own reasons. Thul is part of it, yes. But you,” and she fondled the lobe of his ear, “you are the main part of it. You rescued Lodec. You rescued…so many people, I’m sure.”
“Yes. Yes, I did. I have.”
She ran her fingers down his back, and he trembled from her touch. “Thul kept talking about how important it was to save Lodec. Kept talking about how he’d met Mendan Abbis, back in the days when Lodec worked for some man…Faulkner, I think, or Falcon, something like that…they’d stayed so close, and when Lodec was captured, Thul just knew that you’d be the man to get him out. Just like I—” She gasped. “You’re hurting me!”
And he was. Because he’d had his hand on her wrist, but suddenly he was gripping it tightly.
“I’m…sorry.” He let go of it immediately. She sat up, looking far more irritated than seductive. “Falkar?”
“What?”
“The man he worked for…was his name Falkar?”
She frowned a moment, concentrating, and then her eyes widened. “Yes!” she said, eager and cheerful, the momentary pain on her hand apparently forgotten. “Yes, that’s right. Falkar. He worked for a man called Falkar. Lodec was apparently his main lieutenant, did all the tough jobs for him. That sort of thing.”
His mind reeled as he sagged back onto the bed.
“Mackenzie? Are you all right?” She looked down at him with genuine concern. “Do you know this ‘Falkar’ person? What’s happened? What’s wrong, you seem so upset…”
Slowly, absently, Calhoun ran a finger down the scar on his cheek. The scar that a Danteri general named Falkar had left there, as if it were a gift to wish him luck as an adult. And in his mind’s eye, he called up images long buried, recollections of his father, strapped to a post in the public square, being beaten by a Danteri officer at Falkar’s direction.
Twenty years unravelled in an instant, and he put a beard on the then-beardless youth with the whip, and he aged him in his mind’s eye…
“Mackenzie!” she called loudly.
Before, it had taken him tremendous effort to focus on anything besides Vara Syndra. Now it was a formidable task to concentrate on her. “What?” he said in confusion.
“What’s going on? Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“I…” He couldn’t find the words.
No. No, he knew the words. That man I rescued…that man I almost started to like…that man who was a friend of Thul’s son…that man executed my father. He beat him to death in the town square, and the man who ordered the beating is long dead by my hand, but the man who actually did the job is right down the hallway, tossing back drinks with your boss and if you’ll excuse me now, I’ve got to go kill him…
He started to rise from the bed.
“Mackenzie,” and for the first time, there was a sound of warning in her voice. “I don’t appreciate the notion of men walking out on me. It’s never happened before. It had better not happen now.”
He turned his attention back to her and realized that the last thing he needed was Vara Syndra complaining to General Thul that the merest mention of Lodec or his former employer was enough to send Calhoun over the edge. He was trying to get himself on Thul’s good side, after all. Besides, what was he going to do? Kill Lodec? Run in there screaming his father’s name, announce that Lodec would pay for his deeds, rip out his beating heart and show it to him? The idea had some merit, granted, but ultimately it was counter-productive. Calhoun still had no true idea what it was that Thul was up to, and no certainty of where he was hiding, what it was he was hiding, or who it was he was hiding it from.
The only thing he knew for sure was that if he didn’t give Vara Syndra what she wanted, it was going to look bad for him. Very, very bad.
So he looked at her for a moment as if appraising her, and then he forcibly rolled her onto her back and brought his mouth ruthlessly down upon hers…and then proceeded to give her what she wanted.
But he didn’t enjoy it.
Not especially, at any rate.
XVI.
“I WILL NOT DO IT.”
There was nothing in Doctor Selar’s attitude that suggested she was going to change her mind anytime soon. Nonetheless, Riker did not appear remotely prepared to back down. Standing with him in Selar’s office were Shelby and Soleta. Soleta kept her face, as always, impassive, while Shelby looked concerned and uncomfortable. She was no more happy with what Riker was proposing than Riker himself was, she had made that quite clear. But, to her credit, she was there as a sign of support for the commanding officer.
“Doctor,” Riker began again, “it’s not as if we have a great deal of choice here.”
“You, Captain, may not have a choice. I, however, do.” She shifted her gaze to Soleta, and there was a hint of disapproval in her eyes. “And you have agreed to this…proposal?”
“It is necessary,” replied Soleta, sounding rather formal. “The Romulan woman, Sela, knows information that is potentially of great importance. The Romulans are not in the habi
t of acting in a capricious or haphazard manner. The raid on the Daystrom Institute, their presence in Thallonian space, their possible alliance with Narobi…they are pieces of a puzzle that Sela apparently knows.”
“And that gives you the right,” Selar said to her, “to forcibly thrust your mind into hers?”
“No,” Soleta admitted. “It does not give me that right. It does, however, make it an obligation.”
“If you must do this thing, and are committed to this deplorable course, then that is your own consideration,” Doctor Selar said. “But to seek to involve me in the matter is adding insult to injury…”
“I have performed initial probes into her mind. Very mild. However, I can already sense that she has had training in psychic combat.”
“So you believe that you alone cannot accomplish the job?”
“That is correct.”
“And you would have me disgrace myself because you are incapable of doing so yourself.”
“Doctor,” Shelby said impatiently, “it is not a ‘disgrace’ to do something on behalf of a greater good. Furthermore, when you’re in a service, such as Starfleet, it’s your duty.”
“Duty. Duty.” Selar shook her head. “Commander…throughout history there have been those who were presented with situations where they were asked to make a choice that was morally repugnant to them…usually during a war when they were ‘serving’ the interests of their country in some way. More often than not, they went ahead with those repugnant efforts, even though they knew them to be wrong. Even though the cost may have been the purity of their very katra…their soul. And the excuse they invariably fell back upon was that it was their duty. The duty I attend to, Commander…Captain…Soleta…is the duty to do no harm. As a doctor, that is not only my first priority, it is my only priority. I will not force myself into the female’s mind. You will have to find another way, or Soleta will simply have to do it alone. But that is my final word on the subject. Now, will there be anything else?”
“Doctor,” Soleta said slowly, “a moment of your time…alone? If you please?”
“Lieutenant…”
“It will be all right, Commander,” she said to Shelby.
Shelby seemed no more thrilled than did Riker by the situation, but finally she nodded and she and Riker walked out of the room, leaving Selar and Soleta alone.
“Do you desire to have me talk you out of this course?” Selar asked calmly.
“Doctor…there was a time some months ago when you needed me. I am telling you now that I need you.”
“Soleta…”
Soleta leaned forward on the edge of Selar’s desk, and the careful reserve that she maintained, with effort, slipped somewhat. “‘I believe I am ill. Mentally ill. And I require your services to ascertain that.’ That is what you said to me, Selar, when you needed my help. When you were so convinced that you could not possibly be undergoing Pon Farr that you asked me to help you. No…no, you begged me. You asked me to grant you succor, you were so wretched…”
“I know that,” Selar said. “I was there. I know what I did. I know what I went through. And you helped me, and for that I shall be forever grateful. But this is a different situation…”
“It would be, to you. I’m the one asking for help this time. Selar,” she said in a lowered voice as if someone were eavesdropping, “I am not full Vulcan. You know this. I am impure, my mother Vulcan but my father a Romulan. They are expecting me to meld with a half Romulan woman, against her will, who is quite likely capable of resisting me. And she has had training…what if she turns it back against me? What if she uncovers my background? The risk to myself, the—”
“You are scared.” Selar almost sounded sympathetic.
“Yes. I admit that freely. I am afraid of what I am being asked to do.”
“Then do not do it. I am refusing.”
“The difference is,” Soleta said, “that you are refusing based upon moral principles. If I refused, however, it would be predicated purely on fear.”
“Not necessarily. When you granted me succor, realized that it entailed a mind meld that you did not wish to perform, and further realized that I was just desperate enough to force you to do it anyway, you were morally and ethically repulsed by the notion. You felt that forcing one to perform a mind meld was repellent.”
“Yes. I did. I still do.”
“Then that is the basis upon which you can refuse. For is it not a small step from being forced to perform a mind meld, to having one forced upon you. The woman, Sela, does not want to have her mind probed. On the basis that such matters are best left to personal choice, you can and should refuse.”
And then, to Sela’s complete astonishment, Soleta let out a low roar of fury and, with a sweeping gesture, knocked everything off Selar’s desk and sent it scattering to the floor. The clatter grabbed the attention of everyone in sickbay, and whatever anyone was doing came to a complete halt as all eyes turned to Selar’s office.
Selar’s eyes were wide with astonishment; not even her Vulcan training could repress that. As for Soleta, she was gripping the edge of the desk and trying to restore her breathing to normal. “Have you lost your mind?” Selar asked her, recapturing her customary calm.
“I need you,” she said in a low voice. “And I need Starfleet. I am an impure bastard offspring of a violent rape. I have nowhere else to go in this universe where I can be at home except Starfleet.”
“You are not limited or defined as a person by the circumstances of your birth, Soleta…”
“Yes. I am. And I have been asked by Starfleet, by my commanding officers, to do this thing. They believe that there may be something very terrible at stake, and Sela holds the key. I care about Starfleet. I care about people possibly being hurt or killed by the machinations of this woman. I have asked for your help. When you asked for mine, I provided it; as much as it cost me, I provided it. The short-term result was your coming to terms with, and understanding, what was happening to you, and the long-term result is the baby you carry in your belly. You owe me,” she said in a low and angry voice. “You owe me, Selar, and if you won’t help me, then to hell with you.”
Selar did not even hesitate. “I cannot help you. It is a question of principle. For what it is worth, however…I am sorry.”
Soleta drew herself up, her facade of reserve firmly back in place. “No. You’re not sorry at all. What you are…is Vulcan.”
She turned and walked out of Selar’s office.
Shelby and Riker were standing in the corridor just outside sickbay, and Shelby was saying, “I don’t know about this. I’m…uncomfortable about it.”
“Truth to tell, I’m not happy with it either.”
“Really?” Shelby seemed surprised. “I wouldn’t have known it. If you ask me, you seem perfectly sanguine about it.”
“I know I do. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that whether you make a good decision or a bad decision, what’s just as important—if not even more so—is making a decision and sticking to it. You can’t be a commanding officer and not be committed to your commands.”
“Yes, well…that would explain why some of the CO’s I’ve worked with should be committed.”
They both laughed at that, and then Riker turned to Shelby with mock astonishment and said, “Why, Commander. Did we just have a moment there?”
“I don’t think it was a whole moment, sir. Maybe half a moment.”
“Half.”
“Three quarters at most.”
“I see.” He paused. “You were right about the Romulans.”
“I know. But then again, in retrospect, so were you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean ninety-nine times out of a hundred—hell, maybe nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand—the way you played it was absolutely right. Who knew that they had some bizarre scheme or ability to break into our entire computer system and cause the kind of havoc that they did?”
 
; “You knew.”
She shook her head. “No. I guessed. I had a gut feeling…which, I have to tell you, is damned peculiar for me. I’ve always been by-the-book, follow-the-rules.”
“Perhaps you’ve been hanging around with Captain Calhoun too long. You’re starting to pick up some of his seat-of-the-pants method.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it was just, with you here, my inclination was to second-guess what you were doing. Maybe…that’s my basic nature. I’ve never thought about it before, but maybe it’s the way I operate. When Mac is here and being all gut-feeling, I’m all rules and regs. When you’re here, doing things by the numbers, I’m suddenly advocating acting on impulse. Maybe…” and she sighed deeply. “Maybe that’s why I’ve never gotten command. Maybe I don’t have my own command style, but instead I simply react to other people. But a captain needs to be a leader, to set the tone. Maybe I just don’t have that in me.”
“Nonsense,” Riker said. “You’re selling yourself short, Shelby. Way short.”
“Oh really. And why do you say that?”
He grinned readily. “Call it instinct. Hey…even I have to go by it sometimes.”
She returned the smile, but before she could reply, Soleta walked out into the corridor. She had never seen the Vulcan science officer look quite that deliberately stone-faced before. “Soleta…? Are you all right?”
“I am perfectly fine, Commander…Captain,” she took in both of them with a glance.
“Is Selar going to help you? Give you back-up?” asked Riker.
“No. And I will endeavor to respect her decision. So…let’s get this over with.” And she headed toward Sela’s cell.
Soleta didn’t like the look of things from the moment she got to the cell.
Sela was sitting there looking infinitely smug and infinitely composed. There wasn’t the slightest flicker of fear in her eyes. “Well, well, little lieutenant…going to take a shot at visiting the dark side, are you?”
Riker and Shelby were standing on the other side of the security field, as was Zak Kebron. But for all that their presence mattered, they could have been on Mars. The struggle, on all levels, was purely between Soleta and Sela.