"Captain," McHenry said the moment they were gone, "how did you know that Lefler scored so high in the F.C. Pro class?"
Calhoun smiled. "I didn't. But who's going to deny doing well in a class?"
"Captain."
He turned to face Soleta, who had just spoken. "Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Dr. Selar would like me to come down to sickbay."
"Are you ill, Lieutenant?"
"Not to my knowledge, sir. I'm not entirely certain why she wants to see me. Shejust now contacted me privately over my comm badge. I assume it is some sort of personal matter. Permission to leave the bridge?"
Calhoun considered it a moment, wondering whether he should go directly to Selar and ask after her. But something told him to keep a distance from the situation. "You're asking my permission for something as simple as leaving the bridge?"
"Regulations state, sir, that during a time of contact or in the midst of a mission, all hands are to remain on station and must request permission for any reason if—"
"I know the regs, Lieutenant, but the person who wrote them isn't here. You're a big girl, Soleta. Just tell me you're going and don't drop your comm badge down the commode or something so I can't reach you."
"Sir, leaving the bridge."
"Have a nice trip."
She headed into the turbolift and Calhoun sighed inwardly. What was going to be next? Shouting "Captain on the bridge!" whenever he set foot into the place? Part of him appreciated the endeavors to have respect for proper procedures. By the same token, he had seen people follow procedures so rigidly that others had died because of it. Died needlessly.
An inner voice warned him not to dwell on it excessively, for that way lay madness. And so he turned his attention back to the planet that was spinning below them.
He felt the hair on the back of his neck rising.
He didn't like the feel of this one bit.
The Excalibur didn't have the facilities to beam all four dozen passengers from the Cambondown at one time. So they were sent down in groups of six, with Shelby, Lefler, and Meyer in the first group. Meyer was slim but wiry, and he had piercing blue eyes that seemed to take in everything that was happening around them. He also had the fastest quick-draw on the ship.
Lefler immediately began studying the architecture of Selinium, as well as recording her observations on her tricorder. They had materialized in what appeared to be a main square of the city. They were standing on an upper walkway, constructed brisk clip. Lefler noticed that the vehicles were strictly low-tech, moving on wheels rather than any sort of antigrav or mag-lev basis.
The city towered all around them. However, it was not a particularly large place, which was unusual considering it had been mentioned as the capital. In point of fact, the initial scans of Selinium didn't seem to indicate more than a hundred thousand people residing there, which was—relatively speaking—puny.
Still, there was something about the buildings that seemed... off a bit. Lefler promptly began scanning them. She was so involved in it that she didn't even see the welcome party approach the away team, and didn't look up until she heard Shelby say, "Hello. I'm Commander Shelby, U.S.S. Excalibur.Captain Laheera, as I recall."
Laheera, flanked by several other officials, bobbed her head in acknowledgment. "'Captain' would be more your term than ours. The more accurate equivalent would a term along the lines of 'First Among Equals.' But 'Captain' will suffice, if you are comfortable with that."
Lefler was struck by the fact that Laheera was relatively short. Indeed, of the group of them, none of them was much above five feet tall. And yet there was something about them, some sort of inner light that made them appear—it was hard to say—bigger than they actually were. Bigger, more impressive... something.
Certainly her clothing did not leave much to the imagination. As opposed to the more "official" look of the outfit she'd worn when they first saw her, Laheera was now dressed completely in clinging white: a tight white top with a hem just below her hip, and white leggings under them. The cloth adhered so closely to the line of her figure that Shelby had to look twice to ascertain whether it was, in fact, body paint. It wasn't, but it certainly could have been.
Shelby made quick introductions, and then found that Captain Hufmin of was hovering nearby. He had been one of the first to come down, concerned with making sure that his charges were being properly attended to. Although Shelby could tell, from the slightly panting way that he was looking at Laheera, that there had been more to Hufmin's cooperative attitude than merely wishing to honor the desires of his passengers. He was clearly taken by the indisputable beauty of their hosts. And considering Laheera's current ensemble, his interest was on the rise. Laheera could likely have asked him to stick a phaser in his mouth and pull the trigger, and he would gratefully have complied, with his last words being profound thanks for the honor of serving her.
Lefler, meantime, turned her attention back to her duties while the introductions were being made. Shelby sidled up to her as Laheera, along with her associates, moved beyond them to meet and greet the rest of the refugees, who were continuing to beam down.
"Opinions, Lieutenant?" asked Shelby.
"Commander... you're familiar with the Borg, as I recall."
"A bit," Shelby said dryly.
"Well... this place reminds me of them a little bit, in that the Borg have... what's the word...?"
"Assimilated?" suggested Shelby . . . always a good word when discussing the Borg.
"Right. Assimilated technology from throughout the galaxy. The thing is, the Borg have integrated it smoothly into one, uniform whole. Here, it's... it's a hodgepodge. Look around you." She indicated the buildings. "Everything's just sort of strewn together, with no rhyme or reason. You can't get any sense for the character of the environment. Over there, for instance," and she pointed. "Look at the dome of that building."
"What about it?" said Shelby, but then she slowly started to answer her own question. "Wait a minute. . . isn't that. . . ? "
"Andorian, yes. You can tell by the markings along the lower rim."
"What's a dome from an Andorian building doing here?"
"There's an abandoned Andorian colony on the border of Sector 221-G. My guess is that at some point, the Nelkarites picked it clean. They took whatever caught their interest. That person over there, with Laheera? Wearing a cloak of Tellarite design. That gold iris-eye door fitted into that building over there? It's off an Orion slave ship. This place is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. It's like," and she tried to find the right comparison. "It's like walking into a cannibals' village and finding clothes or trinkets taken from previous... uh . . . meals."
"Are you saying we have to worry about becoming the Nelkarites' consuming interest?" Shelby said slowly. She noticed that Laheera and the others had finished greeting the refugees, and were now heading back toward herself and Lefler.
Lefler seemed to consider the notion for a moment, but then she discarded it. "No... no, I don't think so. They just seem interested in technology, that's all. I don't think there's anything particularly dangerous about them. They're just a small, scrappy race, trying to make use of whatever they happen to get their hands on, for the purpose of getting ahead. I'll wager they even cobbled together the ship we confronted."
"Yes, Soleta made the same observation. Not saying it was 'cobbled together,' but it seemed to be a patchwork of other technology, most conspicuously Kreel."