The entire thing—the attack, the defense, and the dispatching of the opponent—had all occurred so rapidly that Shelby had barely finished the word with "— ity . .." before the Thallonian was laid out in front of her.
Calhoun was staring down at the Thallonian with cool dispassion, and then Zak Kebron emerged from the cargo hold. "You called, Commander?" he rumbled.
"Quick response, Lieutenant," Calhoun said without missing a beat. "Well done."
"Thank you, sir," said Zak.
"If I am not mistaken," Calhoun continued, staring down at the prostrate form, "we are graced with the presence of Lord Si Cwan of the former Thai-Ionian Empire. Lieutenant," and he gestured in Si Cwan's general direction.
Kebron reached down with one hand and picked the insensate Si Cwan offthe ground. "Brig or sickbay, sir?"
"If we put him in sickbay, under the careful ministrations of Dr. Selar, he will likely wake up with no headache. In the brig, he'll wake up feeling like his head's going to fall off." He gave it a moment's thought. "Brig."
Kebron seemed to smile almost imperceptibly. "Good." And he proceeded to cart Si Cwan off down the corridor.
As he did so, Calhoun turned to face Shelby and smiled. "Now . . . you were saying?"
She looked at Kebron's departing form and then back to Calhoun. "You knew he was down here. You weren't coming here by coincidence. You knew perfectly well that that man, Si Cwan, was in the cargo hold."
"Yes."
Calhoun could see rage starting to build within Shelby, her body trembling in barely restrained fury. The door was just closing to the cargo bay when Shelby stormed through it. Calhoun followed her in, more out of curiosity than anything else.
The workers looked up as Shelby entered, but before any of them could say anything, Shelby snarled with barely contained fury, "All of you, out! Now!" Even under ordinary conditions they would not have been inclined to question an order, but considering Shelby's demeanor they were practically tripping over each other to evacuate the area. Shelby turned on her heel, smoldering, as Calhoun entered the cargo bay, the doors hissing shut behind him. Before he could get a word out, she turned and said with unbridled ire, "How dare you? Howdare you!"
"Shouldn't you be asking for permission to speak freely?" he said, unperturbable.
"To Hell with that and to Hell with you, Mac! How dareyou not inform me that you were aware we had an intruder on board! I'm your second-incommand! If I learn anything of importance then I inform you immediately, and I expect the same courtesy from you!"
"I'm afraid I can't agree. There will be times, Elizabeth," he replied in a formal tone, "when information will be on a need-to-know basis. And if, in my judgment, you don't need to know, then I can and will exercise discretion to keep that to myself."
Her flat hands swept the air in an impatient gesture. "Understood, of course, understood. But there is a line, Mac, between keeping things to yourself on the basis of Starfleet security, and keeping things to yourself out of some sort of misplaced need to prove yourself."
"I have no such need, Elizabeth, I assure you."
"Oh, bullshit," she snapped. He raised an eye at the profanity, but she steamrolled on. "You have plenty to prove. You walked out on Starfleet, carrying guilt with you for years, and now you're back with more responsibility than you've ever known, and you're out to prove that you can do it all. Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, the one-man band of the Starship Excalibur.Well, it doesn't work that way, Captain. Not on any ship that I've ever been on. You think you're Atlas, carrying the entire universe on your shoulders, and if anything on this ship goes wrong, it's your fault. It wasn't true on the Grissom,and it's not true here."
His face clouded. "Leave the Grissomout of this, Elizabeth. If you have something to say, say it and be done with it."
She looked down, the initial force of her fury spent, and then, still studying the floor, she told him, "All I'm saying is that part of being a team means that everyone has responsibility, even though you have the ultimate responsibility. But even though you have that ultimate responsibility, your priority still has to be functioning as part of that team. That's where your priority has to lie. That's where your first allegiance has to be. To the Excaliburand the people on . . . her . . ."
Her voice trailed off. He stared at her, a carefully maintained deadpan firmly in place, as he said, "Funny. I was saying that earlier and you were arguing with me about it. I'm glad you've come around to my way of thinking. If you'd care to join me at the brig . . .?" And as he headed out of the cargo bay, the doors slid open to reveal the assorted crewmen who had vacated the bay moments earlier. They were trying to look nonchalant or otherwise occupied; in short, like anything except people who were eavesdropping. They quickly dispersed, leaving Shelby alone.
"I hate that man," she sighed.
HUFMIN
VI.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE Cambondidn't realize the danger until it was too late.
His name was Hufmin, he was a veteran star pilot and occasional smuggler from Comar IV, one of the worlds in the outer rim of the former Thallonian Empire. With many of his usual customers and routes in disarray, he was nevertheless turning a nice profit by offering his services to some of the more well-to-do refugees of the collapsing Sector 221-G. At least, that had been his intention. But somewhere along the way, as he had lent his aid for what had been intended as a mercenary endeavor, he had discovered—much to his annoyance—that he had a heretofore unknown streak of sentimentality. Perhaps it had been the desperate look of some of the women, or, even worse, the grateful faces of the children looking up at him. The Cambon'scomfortable complement was twenty-nine passengers; Hufmin crammed on forty-seven, many of them at less than the going rate and some of them—God help him—gratis. He considered it nothing short of a major weakness on his part. He could only hope for two things: that when this immediate crisis was over he would come to his senses, and that he did not suffer any misfortune, since he firmly believed that no good deed went unpunished.
With the Cambon'sfacilities stretched beyond capacity, Hufmin decided to take a chance and cut through an area that was off his usual routes. On his starmaps it was listed as the Gauntlet, a holdover from more than a century ago when fleets from two neighboring worlds would take to the space between the worlds and blast away at each other. But that was long ago, and the area hadn't been a shooting gallery for ages. Granted, it had been the firm grip of the Thallonian Empire—to say nothing of the Thai-Ionian's summary execution of the warring planetary heads as a warning to all concerned—that had brought a nominal peace to the area. And granted that, with the fall of the Thallonian Empire, anything could happen. But Hufmin couldn't believe that if the situation were to change, it could possibly happen fast enough to be a threat to his ship or its passengers.